The Shinji Ikari One Shots
by CerberusTheHunter
Summary: I once received a review that the beginning of a long form story was too slow. I agreed. To practice, I am writing these one off crossover crack fics that take place over the first and sometimes the second episode of NGE to practice. If any given fic receives interest I may expand it out into its own full story. I will also accept, though not necessarily fulfill requests.
1. Angelborn

Shinji Ikari One Shot One:

Angelborn

* * *

><p>Gendo Ikari sat in the darkness amongst the monoliths of SEELE.<p>

"We should have acted, they are already here!" Came from SEELE 03.

"The scrolls foretold of their coming, to reclaim this world for their father." SEELE 04 said, sullenly.

SEELE 06 was nearly hysterical. "His defeat was merely a delay, until after the door of Guf had been opened and his children awakened!"

"None wanted to believe they existed, but we knew better, they exist." Spoke the quiet baratone of SEELE 01.

"The truth has dawned and it has dawned in fire." They said together.

Gendo Ikari sat still, his hands steepled before him. When he spoke it was even and measured. "But there is one they fear…"

"You have found him?"

"Yes."

"He is here?"

"My operations commander is collecting him as we speak."

"But is the evangelion ready?"

"No, but they do not have our measure yet, the mighty among them have not yet awakened. If he is the one who is foretold then he should be more than a match for the first."

* * *

><p>Shinji Ikari pushed back his helmet and looked around the strange forest. Well it wasn't really strange, it looked just like the forests back home. He had even seen some deer. It felt different though, even his horse was nervous. Granted she had not said anything, but horses rarely did, even special ones like her.<p>

"Shhhhh girl, its okay." He said and stroked her mane. "Not much longer now."

He was pretty nervous himself, no small thing after what he had seen. He had read of the Oblivion gates that had heralded the beginning of the end of the Septim Empire. He had finished it when he retook Skyrim with Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak. The stone device he had passed through reminded me of those descriptions.

He took the paper map from his pack and checked it again. He couldn't be far now, the hills on his left and right matched perfectly with the lines on the map. He began to hear voices ahead and he soon saw a clearing through the trees. As he got closer he saw a woman with dark hair dressed in red and black, standing in front of a strange blue carriage.

He waved and brought his dark steed to a halt at the edge of the clearing. Fog covered the ground between him and the woman.

"Well met, are you Captain Katsuragi?"

"I am." She said, her head tilted. She had never seen a horse with glowing red eyes before, but she wasn't much of an equestrian. Then again the rider was wearing a horned helmet and armor that looked like it was made out of crocodile hide with sharps spurs sticking up all over it.

"Are you Shinji Ikari?"

"I have been called that, among other things. I have been told this is my true home, and I am needed to defend her."

"That is true."

"Then by the nine I shall." He said and swung his leg over his horse's saddle and jumped to the ground. They shook hands and Shinji took his sword and staff from the saddle. He sheathed the sword on his hip and sslung the staff across his back, then stroked the neck of the huge horse.

"Alright my friend, you can go home now." The horse shook her head and huffed. "Come on, don't be like that, we will meet again."

He slapped the horse across its broad chest and it turned back towards the forest.

"Is your horse going to be okay? We can get a trailer and take her to a nice stable."

"That's okay." He said as the horse began to walk away and, to Misato's amazement, walked into the fog and simply disappeared into an inky black puddle. "She'll be fine."

Misato had her phone out when he turned.

"Commander, we have him."

* * *

><p>"The angel is at the edge of the city!"<p>

"Unit One isn't ready! Unit Zero is completely encased in Bakelite!"

* * *

><p>"Shinji my boy, it has been too long."<p>

Shinji reached out and shook the hand of the man who looked like himself.

"I understand you have a dragon problem, my jarl."

"Jarl? Shinji don't you recognize me, I'm your father."

"Then I am sorry, for I do not recognize you."

"We will have time to speak later, I promise you. As you say though, we have a problem. We call them angels but from what I know they are similar to the dragons you have fought."

"Do you have a drawing or maybe a painting? What do they look like.?"

"Lt. If you would."

Shinji saw the light above turn into words and pictures. He saw an image of a green giant. It had claws and slimy skin, it reminded him of the lurkers he had encountered on Solsthiem. But for the head, which was missing. In its place was a bony face like a bird and below that a glowing red sphere held in claws that resembled the antlers of a stag.

"Yeah I think I can handle that. My standard fee is a one thousand septims, paid on confirmation of the beast's death."

"We actually have a suit of armor for you to use, its magic I think you would say, but it is not ready yet, do you…"

"Think nothing of it my jarl, this dov'ah should not be a problem. I have killed four score of his kind just with this sword. Can you get me up someplace high?"

* * *

><p>Shinji road the elevator all the way from deep within the geofront to the top of the great tower of glass and steel. As he mounted the stairs he sat his horned dragonscale helmet on his head and drew his sword in his right hand and his staff in his left. He opened the final door with a swift kick. He felt the heat and saw the faint orange glow of his dragon bone sword. The carved dragonhead of his staff crackled with blue lightening.<p>

As he strode across the roof, he beheld the green giant in its fullness. Atop this high tower he was still beneath the boney face between its shoulders. It was facing to his right, striding past his perch.

The dragon that walked on two legs sought to ignore him. He would punish it for this mistake.

**FUUUUS RO DAH**

His thu'um slammed into the giant. As large as it was, it still stumbled, grabbing the towers around itself to stop from falling.

"Face me Dov'ah!" He shouted, his sword and staff held above his head.

The angel did that and so much more. As it turned it swung its gangly arm into the building upon which Shinji stood. He did not fall. He leaped from the crumbling ceiling to the giant's limb and sunk his blade into the slimy green flesh. Beneath him the flesh burned and blackened and a ring of fire began to spread. The angel screamed.

It did not care for fire. He would overflow its plate.

**YOOOOL TUL SHUL**

Fire streamed forth from Shinji's mouth and lit up the entire left side of the beast. The angel swung it arm and the dragonborn was dislodged, his hand slipping from his sword. He fell to the ground and it felt like his entire body shattered. His staff was gone, lost in the fall. Red then black began to creep over his vision as he saw the strange beast raise one titanic foot as if to crush him.

His words gurgled out through blood and shattered teeth.

_Gaan Lah Hass… _

The healing was so fast as to be painful. His body screamed as he rose from the ground, his shattered armor falling around him. What little remained covered his pelvis and the upper reaches of his thighs, but he was otherwise bare. The giant took its due as well, falling to one knee as the dragonborn took its life force.

"Alright, that's enough screwing around." Shinji said as steam rose from his body. He stood in a crater of his body's making in the middle of the wide boulevard between the tall towers. Even at a knee, the angel was taller than almost all of them.

"Dov'ah! This is your final warning. You may leave in peace or you will be destroyed!" He called out.

Sachiel made no response. The angel regarded the tiny threat that had caused it so much pain with curiosity. It _felt_ like itself, like its kin who still slept, but it looked like one of the Lilim. It was not Tabris, it was unfamiliar, something unknown to its kind.

"Very well, you choose death…"

**MUL QAH DIIV**

Even the angel felt the intense pressure as the shout echoed through the city. Light flowed into colors and gathered around the dragonborn. It formed armor around him and flowed into him, glowing from his eyes and from his mouth.

**JOOR ZAH FRUL**

The great red gem within the belly of the angel flickered and the monster staggered, brought low by dragonrend. As the glowing little human stepped towards the angel swung one of its clawed hands down to squash it like the insect it was. Sachiel was shocked to have its blow repulsed, not by a shield or an obstacle, but by another of equal, no… even greater strength.

When Shinji Ikari stepped forward again, the angel stepped back. So it is just another dragon, he thought. So proud and arrogant, but so petty and weak in the end. He would give it the same service he gave them all. A quick death at the hands of one worthy.

He shouted for fire again and the beast was engulfed. His voice became unrelenting force once, then twice, and charred and off balance the beast fell as he shouted mortality and impermanence at it.

He found his sword, fallen in the street as the flesh it had been stuck in turned to ash. He climbed the thing's leg, more bone then flesh now, shouting dragonrend whenever it stirred.

As he stood atop the red crystal heart, the light of his dragon aspect faded. He hefted the dragonbone longsword in two hands above his head and drove it down into the core.

There was screaming like a thousand dying men, then the flesh burnt away, and as cracks beagn to spread across the red crystal, Shinji felt the quickening. The strange dov'ah's soul flowed into him, one of dozens he had consumed. It tasted a little different, but mostly the same.

As the last of the body turned to dust, the dragonborn jumped the ground. The remarkably human skeleton was surrounded by dunes of grave ash as tall as a horse. As men in black and more of those strange carriages approached, the dragonborn gripped the amulet around his neck and said a prayer to Talos.

Shinji was annoyed though, even in victory. His armor had been obliterated beyond repair and as always seemed to be the case, he only found three useable bones and three useable scales among the whole mess. It would take forever to replace his armor at this point. He wondered if they even had smithies here.

The personnel arriving seemed more interested in the dead dragon then him, so he found a nice comfortable piece of rubble and sat down. As he set his sword down to lean it against the broken piece of concrete an, until now, unseen crack split the width and the sword fell to the ground in pieces.

Well Fuck.

end

* * *

><p>So, what did you all think? My personal opinion is that it was perhaps a little too sparse. If there is interest I will expand this out as a continuing fic either between updates of my current main project Trishula or after that is finished. Mostly though this is just a writing exercise for me.<p> 


	2. A pilot from a counter earth

Shinji Ikari One Shot

A pilot from a counter earth

* * *

><p>It was a dark and misty morning in the hills of Hakone. Captain Misato Katsuragi could see her breath. She cupped her hands around her mouth and breathed onto them to warm them up. Even with the leggings under her black dress and her red leather jacket on she was quite cold. One of her men, dressed in forest cammies, brought her coffee that she eagerly took.<p>

"Thanks Suzuhara."

"No problem Ma'am." The private first class said and gave a curt salute. He was green, just eighteen and two years out of basic. He was a good soldier though and Misato was glad to have him as one of her own people. It helped that he was over six feet tall and built like a brick shit house, which made him basically a giant among his peers. Misato found the little handgun strapped to his hip a little amusing just because it looked tiny on him compared to most soldiers.

It was a moonless night and she stood in the headlights of her Alpine and the Section Two van. They were almost a kilometer from the main road, as far down a dirt path as their vehicles would permit. She had been worried they had made a mistake until the lights found the blue-ish metal medallion, as large as a dinner plate, sunken into a boulder.

"Aida, got anything?" Misato called towards the van.

"No Ma'am. Not seeing anything on NV or IR. Which is kinda weird." The corporal replied, putting his BCGs back on as he lifted his face from the scope. He had been using a special scope mounted to the top of the van with controls inside. He wore the same hip holster as Suzuhara, but it looked fairly normal on his average sized frame.

Aida and Suzuahara went back, they had been child hood friends and had both enlisted when they were sixteen. Aida had done his college work alongside secondary school and got the grade bump when he came in. From what he said it was the only reason he did it. Misato had picked them up when she asked for permanent staff besides the units she picked up when she requisitioned whatever was handy.

"How so?"

"Well Ma'am, I used to camp up here and I haven't seen any deer, birds, not even a tanuki."

Commander Ikari had sent them out here to collect their newest pilot. Most of it was classified way above her paygrade, even as head of tactical operations, but from what she knew this pilot, the commander's own son, had been sent off for training when he was just a little kid. The commander had given them coordinates and instructions and told them he would meet up with them there.

He had also said the kid's teacher came from a weird culture and had given them a list of things to be ready for and things not to do. Misato had received a whole separate briefing on what not to do or wear around him. Apparently they had some weird ways of treating women wherever he had been. Maybe he had been in the Middle East or something, but she had never heard of muslim women not being allowed to wear earrings.

Misato checked her watch. It was nearly 0430, the sun be up soon. They had already been waiting an hour and their brief had said they would rendezvous before dawn.

"Dammit, when is he going to be here..." She grumbled and no sooner had her breath turned to steam did they hear the crunch of undergrowth under foot. All three had their weapons out and attached lights on in a split second and pointing into the forest where the sound came from.

What they found was unexpected. They had been briefed, it was in fact almost exactly what they had been told to expect, but one doesn't really comprehend these things until they happen.

The figure was perhaps five and a half feet tall, but the crested helmet made him look as big as Suzuhara. He wore a crimson red tunic held together by a broad leather belt that bore several pouches and sheathed sword on his left hip. In his right hand he held a spear his height and half again tall, and in his left hand held the front legs of a deer slung across his shoulders. Snug brown leggings, they looked like leather, covered his legs and strappy sandals covered his feet and wrapped up his calves. The tunic stopped at the shoulders and his arms were bare but for leather wrappings around his hands and wrists. The helmet was the color of brass and looked like the old Greek helmets Misato had seen on several modern logos, though it differed in that the opening was Y-shaped instead of the T she had seen. Misato could see the points of a bow peeking over his shoulders and behind his hip.

"HALT!" Barked Private Suzuhara. "Are you Shinji Ikari, son of Gendo Ikari?"

The figure dipped his head to toss the deer over his shoulders to the ground. His left hand now free, he grabbed his hoplite helmet by the face and lifted it from his head to tuck it under his arm. His face was thin and smooth but for the hints of fuzz along the line of his jaw. He had shockingly blue eyes and a shake of his head let his dark, nearly black, hair fall to just above his ears.

"Tal!" He said in a clear and loud voice. He bowed to set his helmet on the ground and raised his hand, showing his open palm. As his body dipped they could see a shield strapped across his back, large enough to cover him from neck to thigh. "I am Shinji, though I have never been called Ikari and I do not know this Gendo of whom you speak. Which of you is Captain Katsuragi?"

Misato put her weapon back in the jackass holster under her jacket and stepped forward, hand extended. "I am Captain Katsuragi."

He tossed his spear into his left hand and grasped her wrist with his right, his fingers beneath the cuff of her jacket. She had been told about this, to shake by the wrists. When he released she copied him and licked her palm. It was a warrior ritual of some kind she was told.

"Well met Captain, I apologize for my tardiness for I did not get to eat before my trip and I hungered." He said and tapped the deer carcass between them with the butt of his spear.

Misato reminded herself that he was raised in a different culture and this may well be normal where he was from. He may look Japanese, he may speak Japanese albeit with a strange accent, but he was… from wherever he came from.

"Well I imagine we can get you some food quick enough. That is not to say we reject your kill if you mean it as a gift of course, I am quite fond of venison myself." She said, a little stiffly. The kid had just dumped a dead deer at her feet, was it supposed to be a gift or what? Was there some little back and forth they were supposed to have, she didn't know.

The young man cocked his head. "I mean no offense, but your superiors told you some strange things about how to treat me, didn't they?"

All four laughed. The quizzical tone of his voice had broken the tension.

"Yes, you could say that. We were told you come from a very different culture."

"From what I have been told of your people Captain, I do. I am told though, that this is the place of my birth, and I know I am one coming among the many. It is my place to adapt to your culture, not to force you to fit to mine. I am not some savage tribesman, I am of the civilized cities."

"Thank you, and nonetheless we will try to not make you too uncomfortable."

"Thank you Captain. Would you introduce me to your warriors?" He said, motioning to Suzuhara and Aida with his spear. Introductions were made and they each copied his method of shaking hands.

"Private, Corporal, Captain. These are ranks and what I should call you? That is polite here?"

"Yes." Answered Corporal Kensuke Aida. "You, uh, look like a warrior yourself if you don't mind me saying. What is your rank?"

"I am trained as a warrior like yourselves and I passed the trials in my teacher's home city of Ko-ro-ba just a month ago. I was accepted by the heads of the city into the high caste of the warriors there." He shrugged his shoulder to slide his shield around to his arm and pointed with his hand to the red markings that Misato figured to indicate his status. "Warrior is my profession and what you may call me."

* * *

><p>Misato was still not sure he believed his words as they drove in the dim early dawn back to the city. Shinji rode with her in her Alpine and Suzuhara and Aida followed in the fan behind them. There had been some tense discussion when they had asked him to put his equipment in the van and ride in the car but he had been satisfied with keeping his sword. He had released the shield from his belt and it now sat between his leg and the center console, his palm resting on the pommel.<p>

"So, are you excited to see your father? I understand you've been away some time."

Shinji shrugged. "I suppose it will be interesting to meet him. My earliest memories are of my teacher, if I knew my father before I left, I do not recall. I actually thought my teacher was my father for most of my life."

"I'm sorry, I did not know."

"No need to apologize, you have not caused offense. In fact, would you mind if I asked you of my earth-father?"

Misato's brow furled at his wording. His 'earth-father'?

"I don't mind at all, what do you want to know?"

"What does he do? I know he is in a position of some authority and that I am required for some battle, but that is all I have been told." Shinji said. It was a lie, but only a small one. He had been told more, but his fib had a purpose. He wanted to know how much these people wanted him to know.

"Well…" Misato paused and considered her words carefully. She had been told to inform him of whatever he wished to know about his duties but she wanted to put it in terms universal enough he would understand. From how he spoke she gathered he had learned Japanese without the cultural side of it. He didn't use the honorifics at all and his tense was always quite forward.

"Your father is Gendo Ikari, the commander of NERV, a special military unit set up to fight a threat we call angels, an extraterrestrial race… do you know what that means?"

"Yes, that they are a species from somewhere other than this planet. We have a similar problem called the Kurii where I come from."

Misato figured he meant a rival group or something and continued.

"So the angels are going to try and wipe out all life on earth. Your father says you were sent away to learn to fight to aid in the battle against the angels."

"I see. He is a warrior then?"

"I am not sure I would call him a warrior. He has never been in the military that I know of, but he is really good at organizing and keeping everything running smoothly. I was brought in to oversee the actual military matters."

Shinji nodded and seemed to consider it for a moment. "Does he answer to a council or some other organ of the will of the people?"

"No, he has total authority over NERV operations and the city."

"Until the threat is over?"

"Yes"

"He sounds like a war chief, put in place by proper rulers to manage a crisis, then expected to step down once it is resolved."

"Yes, yes that does describe what your father does very well." Misato replied after some thought.

"Where I have come from, the word for such a person is Ubar." Shinji said, pronouncing the last word yoo-bar.

"Hm, Ubar Ikari, something tells me he would like that."

Shinji was pleased. So he was the son of a Ubar. His earth-father wasn't of the warrior caste, but if he was made a Ubar he must be high caste of some sort.

As they rounded a corner, dawn was breaking and Shinji got his first look at his father's city. His sense of awe must have been noticeable because the captain commented.

"Beautiful, isn't it? Welcome to Tokyo-3, Shinji."

Shinji smiled as he looked over the towers of glass and metal.

"She is beautiful… are all the cities of Earth so grand?"

"Shinji, may I ask you a question?"

"It would impolite to not first answer mine, Captain."

"Some are not as nice, some are so grand you cannot believe. Now tell me, you called the commander your earth-father, you asked about the cities of Earth… Shinji, where did you go to learn to fight?"

"They didn't tell you?" He asked and turned back to look at her.

"Would I be asking if they had?"

Oh good, they liked to spar with words here too. That made Shinji happy.

He cleared his throat and in his proudest voice said:

"Captain Katsuragi, I learned from Tarl Cabot, first of Bristol, then of Ko-ro-ba, then of Port Kar, known among all the warrior peoples worthy of being called such, agent and champion of the Priest-Kings of Gor."

* * *

><p>As they rode the elevator down into the geofront some time later, Misato was concerned for the boy's sanity, that of his father, and most particularly her own. He claimed to be the student of a character from a crappy series of books, trained on another planet that Earth could never see. She had never read the series as a whole, just the first couple books, but it had a certain reputation. Now her first thought had been he was lying. When she entertained the notion he was telling the truth she had become angry at his father for having done that to a young child.<p>

Finally, supposing it was all true, she was seriously concerned that the boy, young man really, was not unattractive. After all, if it was all true, he would be an excellent pilot for the brain controlled evangelion but for some firearm training and that was easy enough. The problem was from what she remembered; Gorean warriors were all honor bound, swarthy, and sex maniacs. Misato had the horrible feeling that she was going to get stuck keeping this warrior off the earth women, or them off him.

Shinji had put his sword back on his belt and leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed across his chest. He was whistling, though she did not recognize the tune. Under the bright lights, Misato could see that he was in fact swarthy, even without a proper beard, and though he was not muscular as the word usually means, he had dense lean muscles wrapped around his bones. Any baby fat was gone from his face and with the flesh of his cheeks sunken like that he really did look like his father.

"So, if you are from Gor…"

"Which I am."

"If you are from Gor, didn't the cars, this elevator, lots of stuff seem a little weird to you?"

Shinji shrugged. "Teacher told me about the many wonders of Earth. You have many things here the priest-kings do not allow us."

"Yeah, I couldn't imagine being forced to stay so… stagnant with technology. No phones, no cars, no computers…"

"Clean air, fresh food, almost no disease, medicine to let a man live a happy life into his third century…"

"No way."

"Its true, I met a man in my teacher's court who was two hundred and thirteen. Teacher says he knew an assassin who lived to be four hundred, but I never met the man."

"Uhuh, sure you did."

Shinji raised his nose to the ceiling and closed his eyes. "Captain, on my honor as a warrior, I would not lie to you.

He managed to keep a straight face for another two seconds before he began to laugh. Misato could not help but to laugh with him. His laugh was full and genuine, and thus infectious. So he may be insane, or from a savage planet, either way, Misato could not help but think he was a good person.

The elevator dinged and the doors open to admit a blond in a lab coat.

"Well hello, you must be Shinji Ikari, I'm Dr. Ritsuko Akagi." She said and extended her hand. Misato was a youthful thirty-four, as was her blond friend, but she could have sworn she heard a mountain lion growl when Ritsuko laid eyes on Shinji.

Misato was amused but managed to not snicker when Shinji licked his palm after gripping her by the wrist. She saw Shinji grin when Ritsuko made a face at his actions. Misato could see her friend's face in the stainless steel wall panels.

"You know, for having cars and elevators, you people do spend an awful lot of time going from one place to another. Where are we going anyway Captain?"

The doctor answered. Shinji found her preemption of Misato rude, but perhaps physicians were placed above warriors here.

"We are going directly to the evangelion hanger. An angel has been detected." Ritsuko said and jammed the cancel button on the elevator before hitting the button for the correct floor.

The blond looked at him, and Shinji imagined she was expecting him to ask her a certain set of questions. He also imagined the answers he would get would be less than respectful. So he didn't ask. Her reaction to his inaction was amusing. He could almost hear her face scrunching up.

Earth women were fun. Lets see how far we can poke the hens.

"As I was saying Captain, medicine is much more advanced where I come from. Teacher said you lot haven't even figured out the stabilization serum here yet. I mean, it is expensive on Gor, but with your magnificent city, you do not seem to lack for money."

Oh that got the blond going Shinji thought. She turned on her heels and her look was like daggers to his throat. "And just what is a stabilization serum, mister Ikari? I would think we simply call it something else and have it freely available to all if some alchemist or whatever you call would be doctors have come up with it. Tell me, does it involve leeches? Maybe certain mysical herbs and incantations? Oh do tell us of the magic of whatever backwoods hack that passes for medical treatment where you come from."

Misato had assumed everyone on base had gotten the same briefing her men and she had, or at least all the women. She moved to the other side of the elevator, to try and put herself between her friend and the young man. She felt foolish when Shinji didn't move from his spot, still leaning against the wall in the corner of the elevator car.

"Now now Captain, I am more than happy to explain. Besides, Dr. Akagi's rudeness does not bother me. In fact I would ask a question of you doctor. How old are you?"

Ritsuko shoved Misato aside with a hand on her shoulder. "It is rude to ask a women's age."

"It is rude to speak ill of a culture you do not understand, Doctor…" He shot back with a grin.

"… I'm thirty-five years old."

"And you consider yourself attractive? I would offer my opinion but I wouldn't want to seem disrespectful. Physicians are obviously held in high regard here"

"Yes." She said through gritted teeth.

"And in another thirty-five years, do you predict you will still be so attractive?"

Misato felt like she was watching a train wreck. Ritsuko looked like she was going to scream at any moment. Misato had annoyed her to this point before but they had known each other for years, Shinji had just met the woman. It was all going so bad but she just couldn't look away.

"Noooo, I don't expect I will be but we don't feel a woman is defined by her body here on Earth, mister Ikari. I am a noted expert in my field and my colleagues define me by my work."

"I am sure they do doctor. But what if I told you a… I do apologize; I do not recall the word in your language… a _kajira_ in my teacher's court who was once the wife of a quite rich merchant, looked oh not unlike Captain Katsuragi does now, you are a few years older than her, right doctor?..."

Misato openly winced when he said that. She was actually a few months older than Ritsuko.

"… and we celebrated her eightieth birthday by passing her among the warriors beds for the night, and not a single one of us found her lacking? I will admit I did not believe some of the men who said experience is the truest measure of worth but I must agree with your standards doctor…"

Shinji unfolded his arms and stretched them above his head before bringing his forearms to rest against the broad belt that circled his abdomen. His left palm rested on his sword.

"…I would define her by her work and she surely was an expert in her field." He said then snapped his fingers. "Oh that's it! I just remembered that word that escaped me. Slave girl, kajira means slave girl. Now I understand that an angel approaching is a serious thing, but I would love to discuss the latest use of leeches and mystical herbs on Earth with you at a later time doctor, I think we have much to learn from each other."

Shinji leaned back against the wall again and chuckled to himself as the doctor silently fumed. The rest of the ride was silent. Neither of the earth women were happy with him. Oh they were fun though. He wondered if they were all like this, it would explain some of the ones he had met back home.

The hens marched him out of the elevator and into a dark room with only a catwalk that he could see. They were midway across by Shinji's reckoning when the lights came on. His hand flew to his sword when he saw the huge face and the gigantic eyes staring at him. He wasn't sure what his sword could do to it, but it was the only weapon he had.

"Shinji…" Came a booming voice from above. Shinji looked up to see a small room of glass above the titanic head. Bright light from within silhouetted a figure, the source of the voice. "You have grown well, you look strong. An enemy only you can fight approaches. You will use this weapon, the evangelion, and defeat it. That is your duty as a warrior of Tokyo-3."

Nobody expected the young man to respond with laughter. Misato found his laugh decidedly less endearing as it echoed off the hanger walls.

"Do I speak with the Ubar of this city, my father?" He said, his voice as loud and full of pride as when he had first told Misato of where he was from.

"You do."

"And you would employ this warrior?"

"Yes…"

"Then we will discuss payment!"

"Shinji, I know you have been away some time and I do not know what you have been told but there is a giant alien monster coming here to kill everyone ! This is not time for wage negotiations!" Yelled the shadowy figure. Whatever air of mystery he had meant to cultivate was now eliminated

"Seems like the perfect time from where I stand!" Shinji responded, with more than a hint of arrogance in his voice. His arms were crossed across his chest and he looked up at the glass room with a grin.

The figure, his father, turned and said something Shinji did not hear. A moment later, a door to Shinji's left opened and a bed was wheeled in. On it laid a girl Shinji found quite curious. She was rather injured and looked to be in great pain. Her skin was ivory white and her hair was blue like the sky. Shinji stepped closer and saw her eyes were blood red. He assumed there was a second eye under the bandage that covered half of her face. Shinji brushed a doctor aside and stepped to the side of the bed and looked down into the crimson eye. He reached out and grasped the girls chin. She was in pain despite the sedation, but her jaw opened easily and she turned her head first left then right when he applied gentle pressure to her chin.

"What is your name, child of blood and sky?" He asked in a soft voice.

"If you will not fulfill your obligations…" Came the voice again. Shinji wasn't listening as it continued, his attention was on the girl.

"Rei… My name is Rei." The girl said, almost silent with just the faintest breath passing her lips. Shinji could see the strength in her face. She was in agony but refused to scream or cry. Not a whimper from her despite the injuries that left most of the bedding soaked with blood. That was admirable.

"I'll take her!" Shinji yelled up at the figure. He turned from the girl and faced the glass room. "Not premium wages by any means, but you have only words to know my abilities right now and I can understand that. I expect her to be fully healed before taking possession of her though! We will discuss ongoing pay after this attack is repulsed."

"What?!" Came voices from all around. Misato was trying to work out his meaning, thinking it could be a mistranslation on his part, like maybe he meant he will take control of the eva and talking about pay was some honor thing but then he wouldn't be talking about… then it clicked. Suddenly and horribly it came together in Misato's head.

_Kajira_, slave girl, Gor. He thought Rei was an offer of payment.

"Shinji, that's not what he meant, we-"

"NERV agrees to your terms for payment for this action, further negotiations can wait." Boomed the voice of the commander of NERV. "Weapons have been prepared for your use in the evangelion. Now get moving, I want to avoid a confrontation inside the city."

* * *

><p>Gendo Ikari got what he wanted.<p>

Evangelon Unit One deployed on the Eastern outskirts of Tokyo-3. A progressive spear and a broad double-edged sword, about the length of the giant's arm, had followed.

The bridge was stunned when the evangelion hefted the spear and threw it like a javelin, something it had never been designed for. It found its mark and pinned the angel Sachiel to a hillside by its leg. The angel freed itself, regenerating flesh as quickly as it ripped itself from the spear point, but it was long enough for Shinji to close the distance.

Butchered was the word that came to Misato's mind as she watched the carnage. The evangelion wielded the sword like it was processing an animal, severing joints and major muscle groups. When the angel regenerated, Shinji switched tactics, laying open the abdomen and torso with deep, powerful cuts.

When the angel screamed, Shinji knew he had found its weakness. His strike had chipped the great red gem in its belly. Blows with his great machine's fists did much more than that, and the screaming continued. When the gem's surface was deprived of all smooth round portions that his blade could deflect from, Shinji finished the monster with a powerful slash.

From the bridge they saw the evangelion cut the angel's core in two, then the core shattered into dust. The corpse of the angel lay on the same hill the spear had pinned it to, with the spear shaft still jutting out from the earth.

In the morning light, all could see the purple giant that was evangelion unit one. One hand was drenched with blood to the elbow, and the other held a great bloody sword. The blooded hand reached down and grabbed the beak like "face" of the angel and began to pull from the angel's corpse. The evangelion put its foot the beast to try and pull the skull away and finally brought the sword down, nearly stumbling as the face, and a skull and spinal cord behind, came loose. It hefted the bloody trophy to the sky and roared.

Inside the entry plug, and on the monitors of the bridge, Shinji laughed. What disturbed Misato was that when he laughed, no matter what it was about, it sounded the same. It was full, and genuine, and deep and it did not matter what it was about, whether he has butchering an angel or when he made a joke earlier, it was like that was all equally amusing to him.

"Tu Sardar Gor! For the priest kings!" He shouted in Gorean before repeating himself in Japanese.

"For Earth, for Tokyo-3!" He said as he pumped the trophy in the air again.

"Um, Commander Sir…"

"What is it lieutenant?"

"We may have a problem sir. In case of potential radio interference due to AT field fluctuations, the external speakers on Unit One were left on."

"Lieutenant, how much of the city has been evacuated?"

"Um, none Sir, there was no time with the angel's sudden appearance."

"How many TV stations is it on?"

"All of them Sir, local, national, and international, radio too."

Gendo Ikari took off his glasses, and gingerly folded the arms and set them down next to his console. He reached over and manually turned off the microphone so that unless he yelled, those present besides the vice-commander at his side, could not hear him.

"Fuck…"

* * *

><p>Later that day, Gendo Ikari found himself before the monoliths of his supposed bosses.<p>

"Ikari, what in god's name were you thinking?"

"Well chairmen, it did afford us a four year delay in the arrival of the angels. We needed that time to prepare."

"You think I don't know that? I meant what the fuck were you thinking sending your only child off to that intergalactic zoo?!"

"They helped us, all they wanted was a cultural exchange and a favor down the line, I thought it was a good deal. Besides, sending the first or second would have been impossible."

"Don't even get me started on the first child! Am I to understand you sold her to your son for services rendered?!"

"Unfortunately, regulations prevent me from discussing ongoing wage negotiations…"

"IKARI!"

* * *

><p>After the battle, Shinji had been concerned with firstly getting his things back. His arguments for the return of his weapons had been at least put off by Misato suggesting he leave them with science division so they could work on copying them for the eva. Shinji was satisfied with that but still took his sword, reasoning that he was satisfied with the model provided. He suggested they study his helmet as well, since the horn and frill of the evangelion was, in his words:<p>

"As pointless as tits on a tharlarion."

Whatever the hell that meant. They had given him back his bow too, with the promise that the evangelion's model was undergoing final testing. Shinji had slung it across his chest as it had been when he had met Misato in the woods.

Priority number two was food. Corporal Aida had actually had the bright idea to take the deer to a butcher for processing so food was acquired from the NERV cafeteria. That had been an adventure in itself.

Misato had informed operations of where they were going, just to be safe. When they entered the cafeteria, it seemed like half the base staff was there. News spread quickly among bored soldiers.

"Tu sardar Gor!" They yelled.

"For Earth, for Tokyo-3!"

"Hail Shinji, warrior of Tokyo-3!" They chanted, some applauding by smacking their palms to their shoulders

Oh great Misato thought, someone had read the books. This could not end well.

He demanded meat and he received it. He demanded paga, whatever the hell that was, and someone said he wanted wine and brought it. She saw it was Makato doing the cultural translation. Oh that little bastard was going to get NJP'd so hard he was going to wish he'd never been commissioned.

They left the impromptu party nearly three hours later, only after Shinji had led several drinking songs, from atop a table, that he insisted they learn phonetically. The songs had followed a tall pot having been co-opted into a communal drinking vessel and filled with beer being passed around the room. Each person took a drink and passed it along. Quite a victory feast, for 0900 in the damn morning.

Misato cringed when he said where he wanted to go next.

"Take me to see the girl called Rei."

The hospital was only two elevators and four hallways away. Shinji brushed off the security officers who only went through the motions of telling him his sword was not allowed. They knew who he was, what he had done, and most of all that they lived only because of him. That's gets one a lot of credibility with people one has not even met. They were also happy to help him find Rei Ayanami's room and to make sure nobody but doctors and those he approved entered.

Misato followed him into the hospital room and shut the door.

"Warrior Ikari, I need to discuss this with you…" She said as she turned to face him but did not continue. She found him sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the low hospital bed. With her head turned to face him, he and Rei were at even level. He was speaking to her, softly, in that strange mix of low, guttural tones and lilting, almost sing-song consonants that she now recognized as Gorean. He had one hand by her face and was slowly stroking the blue-haired girl's cheek. God she was smiling, that wasn't something Misato had seen before.

Misato watched the little scene unfold in fascination. Shinji considered Rei property now, and from what Misato had read in those damned books, that didn't mean being…well… cute, was the only word she could think of to describe it. Maybe sweet. Yes sweet. Tooth rottenly sweet actually.

"What is that you are speaking?" She asked.

"The language of my home, Rei child of blood and sky." He replied.

"What were you saying?"

"That all will be well and your pain will be healed soon. I have slain the angel, you are safe now." Shinji said, smiling.

"Are you the commander's son?"

"I am the son of Gendo, Ubar of Tokyo-3, though I did not know him before today."

"What is your name?"

"I am Shinji, warrior of this city. You will know it well."

"What do you mean?"

"My earth-father offered you as payment for the head of the angel. I killed the beast, so you are mine now, you are _kajira_." Shinji said. He had seen the reactions of free women having just changed status before, but this girl did not react that way.

"What is kajira?" she asked.

Well that explained that.

"Slave girl." Shinji replied. "Worry not, I am a simple man and I will teach you those things I will require of you. I own no others, so you will have no chain sisters to squabble with. If father keeps paying me like this I will have to put you in charge of the others I suppose…"

"These are… good things?"

"Yes."

"Good." Rei said and nuzzled her cheek into his palm. Misato was looking at the IV bag hanging next to the bed. That explained it, she thought. Girl was on more painkillers than a woman in labor.

"Come on warrior, let's let the poor girl sleep."

They left after Shinji told Rei she was to obey her physicians. In the hallway, they spoke again.

"Captain Katsuragi, a question comes to mind. Will I be housed or given a stipend to secure shelter?"

"To tell you the truth warrior, I don't know. Good question though, I will check." She replied and took her phone from her pocket. She dialed and held it to her head.

"Commander, I am sorry if I am interrupting… Yes, Sir… Of course Sir, yes he is fine, we just finished visiting the first child… I'm sorry Sir I wasn't aware that was your intention… Yes Sir, since you mention it, she seemed to be doing alright… Yes, Sir, actually I called regarding lodgings for Shinji…" Shinji heard voices coming from the strange device, which he assumed was the 'phones' he had been told about. He saw the captain pull the device away from her head and she appeared panicked.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE IS STAYING WITH ME OF COURSE?!"

end

* * *

><p>Gor gets a lot of hate. That may contribute to why I like it, I dunno. I actually wrote more than this but this felt like a good point to end the chapter. Let me know what you all think. I will admit an expanded story would probably have to end up on another website. Unlike my other Gor story, Assassins Of A Counter Earth, a Gorean warrior on earth story pretty much has to touch on the NC17 rated bits of that universe.<p> 


	3. No-Life King of Tokyo-3

Hey folks! A reminder, these are really me trying to improve, so critiques are very desirable. ALSO, please please please leave a review, even a short one just to say you like a story, if you want to see more of it. I have a few more of these in the pipe and several where there is a chapter 2 or 3 ready to go.

Shinji Ikari One Shot

No-Life King of Tokyo-3

_In the year 1999 the Millennium organization, a Nazi occult science group which had survived in South America, surfaced. Using technology, they had duplicated a race of monsters that has preyed on mankind since the beginning of history, the undead. Vampires, heading armies of semi-intelligent mobile corpses known as ghouls, made high profile attacks throughout the world._

_Two organizations, existing in opposition but concurrent in purpose, opposed them in Europe. The Royal Order of Protestant Knights, also known as the Hellsing Organization, and Vatican Operations Section XIII, also known as Iscariot._

_The matter came to a head in the invasion of London shortly before the turn of the century. The majority of forces involved perished, including the Hellsing Organization's most powerful weapon, a vampire under their control known as Alucard. This being was known in life as the Wallachian noble Vlad "the impaler" Tepes, better known as Dracula and one of the most powerful undead to have ever existed._

_Humanity, now aware at large of the existence of the undead, rallied their nations and purged the vampires and ghouls within their ranks. Under the newly created UN organization called GEHIRN, the effort to exterminate the final predators of humanity began. Within a year those vampires that were not controlled by a human led force had been nearly wiped out. Those that remained were now the prey._

_In August of 2001, a discovery was made beneath the Antarctic ice. An immense being, theorized by some to be the origin of the undead on Earth had been found. This being, which became known as the vampire Adam, was dormant at its discovery, but after it was uncovered signs of unlife began to return. _

_In September of that same year a contact experiment was attempted, utilizing a holy weapon known as the Spear of Destiny. The objective of the experiment was to neutralize Adam. Contact instead resulted in an event known as Second Impact, also known as the Second Great Flood. The Antarctic ice melted in an instant, raising sea levels and killing nearly two billion by drowning and the destruction rent by worldwide tidal waves._

_This was to only be the start of a new, dark, chapter for humanity. Within days, vampires and ghouls began to emerge. Those bodies which had been recovered where quickly burned, but the unrecovered hundreds of millions held a potential army beneath the waves, the likes of which the world had never seen._

_GEHIRN was reorganized as UN NERV, in which was trusted the organization of resistance against the undead which now plagued humanity in a way not seen in recorded history. NERV was successful in organizing the retaking of much of the remaining land of the planet, however Africa and Europe remain lost to the undead._

_As humanity rallied, new and terrible forms of the dead emerged the likes of which had not seen before. The worst of these became known as Angels. Vast gestalts of putrid flesh, theorized to be the result of several hundred thousand corpses being fused into a single creature. After the first was dispatched through use of several thermonuclear weapons, a new solution was needed._

_In 2006, a ritual was conducted by the remnants of the Hellsing Organization and a small faction of NERV personnel who believed in their methods of combating the undead using the undead. This ritual involved all recovered articles of the vampire Alucard as well as a large quantity of virgin blood, the vampire Alucard's only progeny, and a young male child. _

_The exact procedures of the ritual are unknown, however all involved but Sir Integra Fairbrooks Wingates Hellsing and the remaining controlled vampire perished, including the child's mother. Both have refused to divulge the content or intent of the ritual, leveraging their continued utility in exterminating the undead threat to avoid prosecution._

_The result of the experiment was a vampire borne of the body of the child. This vampire was found to be in possession of the many magical and technological enhancements made to the vampire Alucard during its use by the Hellsing Organization, leading many to believe the ritual was meant to resurrect the organization's most potent weapon. The vampire was declared property of the Hellsing Organization and put into their custody._

_The year is 2014. Sir Hellsing has died and willed the vampire known in life as Shinji Ikari to NERV, on the condition that they provide a suitable candidate to serve as the creature's master._

_This is the story of the Vampire and his master as they seek to end the undead threat to humanity._

* * *

><p>Captain Misato Katsuragi of NERV strode through the emptied town. All of the inhabitants had been evacuated to provide a buffer zone around the arrival site. Military vehicles and heavily armed soldiers filled the streets. NERV VTOLs patrolled the skies and the prepared landing site, a grassy municipal baseball diamond, was lit by a dozen spotlights.<p>

Misato heard the sound of helicopter blades and hurried to the field's edge. All NERV aircraft used the tilting jet design, which meant any helicopter in the area had to be their delivery. As it came down into the field of light, she could see it was a Russian model, one of their large cargo haulers that resembled the flying tank that was the Hind gunship. She had heard Hellsing had been hiding out with the Russians.

As the helicopter set down, it brought with it a hurricane of dust, and Misato raised her jacket around her nose and mouth. She could see soldiers in black dismounting from the huge helo. On their shoulders was the quartered red and black badge of Hellsing.

One soldier, apparently the leader, pointed at her and beckoned for her to approach. As she walked towards the aircraft, the blades were coming to a stop.

"Captain Katsuragi?" The man asked in a Russian accent. A balaclava covered his face and Misato could see only his eyes.

Misato nodded and held up her NERV ID. The man pointed towards the rear of the chopper, where the large cargo ramp was opening. She nodded again and began to walk towards the ramp. Despite all the lights, she could see nothing but inky blackness past the door. She stood one step away from the ramp and looked to the man who had called her over. He only nodded and she sighed then took a deep breath before stepping into the darkness.

Misato knew she should have heard the sound of her heels on metal deckplate. She should not be hearing the dull tock of the stout heels hitting hardwood. She should not be smelling cigar smoke and alcohol. She should not be seeing a dark barroom with a single occupant seated at the single table and a band of identical men to the one at the table, all dressed in dark grey suits with red shirts and ties, playing deep, thrombing jazz. And yet, she heard, smelt, and saw all of these things as if they were perfectly real.

The man at the table held up a white gloved hand and beckoned for her to come and sit. She had been shown pictures of the vampire and this man looked nothing like the asian teenager she had been sent to collect. He was tall, unganly so, and had long black hair and noble European features. Despite the darkness, he wore sunglasses.

"Cease the illusion vampire." She said and stood beside the table.

"Command is something you will soon possess, but for now, yours is to listen…" The man said and waved two fingers. Misato found herself thrust into a chair, which rocked back before all four legs settled on the floor as if held there.

"…and obey."

The man took a sip from a wine glass, which Misato was sure was not filled with wine, before speaking again.

"You are the candidate to be our master?"

"Yes."

"Do you fulfill the criteria?"

"Yes" She responded again. The criteria he spoke of, more than anything, had put her in this position. Simply put, she was the highest-ranking female officer in NERV who was a virgin and single. She liked to attribute both to the massive injuries she had received as an up-close-and-personal witness to the second great flood. A piece of shrapnel the size of a dinner plate had cut her from just below her breast down to her tailbone. She was a virgin by virtue of the fact that "down there" had been repaired to function to remove waste and there wasn't anything left to do anything else.

She still had feelings and emotions of course, strong ones, just romantic relationships too often had trouble getting past the state of her body. That enjoyable sex was not even really a possibility did not help matters.

"Have you ever considered the possibility of eternal life, m'lady?"

"Yes." She responded. It was part and parcel to hunting the undead. It was the prisoner's dilemma that allowed them to continue for millennia. Despite eternal damnation, someone was always willing to take the deal. It was pointless to tell people not to think about it, everyone did. It was having the fortitude not to keep thinking about it.

"And what did you think of it?"

"I found it wanting." To live forever, as a neutered freak, alone, was not in any way desirable to her.

The chuckle that came from the figure was deeply unsettling. The smile doubly so.

"Good." He said and waved one hand over the table. An arcane symbol appeared in white over the dirty wood. It was a pentagram within a circle, flanked by warding. Words in english around the rim read: HELLSING - Hells Gate Arrested – Gott Mit Uns – And Shine Heaven Now.

"Memorize this circle. You will draw it…" He flicked his fingers and was suddenly holding a piece of white chalk. "…With this. One stride wide. You will ask us to step into it, before drawing your own blood…"

His flicked the fingers of his other hand and now held both the chalk and a mother of pearl handled pen knife out for her.

"And let us taste of it. Once we have drunk of it, we are bound to you and you to us." With that he stood and the table, the floor, the band, and the whole of the bar and all its details melted into darkness. Misato found herself standing now in a small circle of light over a metal floor she recognized as the deck plating of the helicopter. The vampire was only a pair of bright red eyes within the darkness.

"Begin."

"You do not command me, vampire."

"And yet you must obey, your mission demands it."

Misato grimaced and took a deep breath before kneeling down, and she was very mindful of the fact that she was kneeling before the vampire, and starting to draw. The circle was not perfect, but it was close enough. As she rose, she locked eyes with the red orbs in the dark and held the pen knife to her palm.

"Step forward vampire." She said.

Out from the darkness stepped a figure made of darkness itself. It was in the shape of a man but as if slightly out of focus. Misato became uneasy as she tried to look deeper at its skin. She could catch glimpses of crawling things, of buzzing tings, of flying things, before her mind forced her to unfocus. As it stepped into the chalk circle, the lines on the metal deck began to glow. The ritual had begun, the vampire was locked within the chalk lines until it was complete.

With a hiss she pulled the blade down through the flesh of her palm. The figure twitched as if to grab at her arm and she pulled her hand away. It was time to put this vampire in his place.

"No. Yours is to obey vampire, not to take. End this illusion."

The figure growled and bore a mouth of bright white fangs at her.

"Now! Or I leave you in that circle and have my men dispose of you like all the other undead scum."

It opened its mouth and hissed at her as the darkness began to recede. First she saw the interior of the helicopter, then the darkness pulled back over the figure and what it left astonished Misato.

Standing in the circle was a pitifully sick looking young boy. He had black hair cut in a bowl cut and his skin was pallor grey. He wore a rumpled black suit that was too big for him and his black necktie hung loose around his red shirt collar.

This was the Hellsing Organizations ultimate weapon?

"P-please…" The boy rasped out, holding up his white gloved hands together in front of him. "I-I'm sorry about the illusions, I j-just didn't think I'd make a good impression and I c-couldn't really remember the steps right, s-so I let him come out. I-I'm Shinji Ikari, the real one."

Misato pushed all thoughts of sympathy from her mind. This was probably just another trick. It would be best to end this before the vampire got any more creative. She thrust out her hand and clenched her fist, causing the blood to begin to trickle down her hand.

"Drink, vampire."

He leaned in and stuck out a tongue that was far too long to look at all natural. He lapped at the trickle from her hand and for some reason she could not fathom, Misato opened her fingers. The young vampire latched onto her hand, though without using his fangs Misato noted, and began to drink from the wound. The soft squeaking as his sucking caused the seal of his lips to break reminded Misato of a babe breastfeeding in an incredibly unsettling way.

"That's enough!" She said and pulled her hand away.

The boy looked at her with sad red eyes, as if he had been struck, before her mind forced her not to focus again for a moment. When she could see the vampire again, he had changed.

It still looked like the boy, though it stood upright now instead of the pitiful slouching creature that had drunk from her hand. His black hair was slicked back over his head and he wore the same little round sunglasses that the adult in the illusion had worn. He filled the suit perfectly now and Misato saw the circle she had drawn on the floor drawn on his white gloves as he reached up and cinched up his tie.

The boy clicked his heels together and with one hand behind his back and the other held horizontal across his abdomen, bowed.

"What is thy bidding my master?"

"Tell me who you are, vampire, truly."

"I am untold multitudes contained within the blood of a single vampire." He said as he straightened up. "I am the impaler, I am the dragon, I am the no-life king, and I am Shinji Ikari. I am also untold millions more. Most importantly, I am yours to command Misato Katsuragi, your humble servant on an unbreakable leash."

He smiled and it did not surprise the captain that every tooth in his mouth was a fang.

"And I am your gadfly. I am the ever present voice of temptation." He said, spreading his arms to his sides. "I am infinite power at your beck and call, but yours to truly own should you only ask. You may have considered the offer of eternal life oh captain my captain, but never with it right here at your fingertips. I am your eternal reminder that you choose to continue your slow march to death when you could rule as a queen for eternity if you only asked."

"Eternity holds no draw for me, vampire."

"As your wretched self no, but the vampire changes its form to suit its desires. If a queen of the damned wanted _companionship_…" He leaned towards her and his glasses slipped down his nose, exposing one bright red eye. The other was covered by darkness.

"Then she would only change herself to receive it."

It was revolting to think that this creature now knew her every thought. Her every fear, her every desire. He knew them as well as she did now and the rest of her life she would fend off his offers of succor.

"Silence, Freak!" She barked imperiously, standing as tall as she could. "You are not some noblewoman's pet any longer. I am a soldier, and I will take you into the breach until your kind is wiped from this world! And when none remain but you, I will put the stake through your heart myself!"

In a wave of darkness he turned back into the sickly child who had suckled from her hand.

"Would you?" He asked with tears in his eyes. When she flinched the vampire returned to its healthy form and began to laugh. It was cruel and grating.

"Very well master, let us go together now, and I will show you what a fearsome bite this noblewoman's pet has."

* * *

><p>End<p>

So this was something a little different. If this gets enough interest to develop further the character arc would chiefly concern the Shinji (appearing here as the sickly child) persona's control over the souls within himself, and Misato's twin desires to be a mother figure to Shinji and her attraction to the vampire personas and if she can really resist temptation. Love, physical and emotional, and to be a mother to SHinji and possibly others through siring, is an incredible temptation to her.


	4. NERV of Iron

Shinji Ikari One Shot

N.E.R.V. of Iron

This has been taken up by 100flyking to be written as a full story.

(Note: if you want the full experience, cue up shoot to thrill by AC/DC and hit play when you see "Okay Toji, mark". Not going to put the lyrics in the text for the whole song.)

The year was 2009, and Shinji Ikari's parents had sat him down at the kitchen table to talk to him. Usually this meant he was in trouble, but they assured him he was not.

"Mommy and Daddy's boss from work, Mr. Stark, is going to come visit. He is coming to see you Shinji." Said Yui Ikari.

"Come on dear, he isn't a baby, you don't have to talk to him that way. Shinji, Mr. Stark wants to talk to you about coming to work with N.E.R.V." Said his father, Gendo.

"W-with you guys?" Shinji asked.

"No not exactly son, but we would see you and you would get to see what your mom makes." Gendo said then sighed and pulled off his glasses. "Son, we want to talk to you about this, because it would mean you might have to go away on long trips. And you've always been…"

"Attached, that's all." Yui interjected before her husband called their son clingy or a momma's boy. "Do you think you'll be alright with that?"

"Y-yeah, I think so. I'm not a little kid anymore, I can do it." Shinji said.

Gendo smiled and slapped his son on the shoulder. "I know you'll make us proud, Shinji. Not that I'm not proud of you, I always have been."

"Dear, its okay, just stop talking now…" Yui said. All three turned towards the door of their apartment when the bell rang. Gendo was the one to open the door, and all three Ikari's bowed when a man entered followed by a red haired woman. Both were in business suits. Shinji had met Ms. Potts at a Stark Industries family picnic. He knew N.E.R.V. was all but a subsidiary of Stark, so their relatively small staff and their families were invited to all Stark functions.

Shinji recognized the man from TV and pretty much everywhere else, they even taught about him in school. Tony Stark, the man who, with a third of humanity dead and most of earth's heroes among them, brought earth back from the brink. His technology had saved billions from starvation and as the invincible Iron Man he had single handedly ended wars around the world and stopped even more from ever happening.

Shinji had a poster of the man in his bedroom. It was autographed.

He was wearing a silver business suit with a metallic pink and gold tie and somehow, he pulled it off.

"Yui, Gendo, lovely to see you both aaaaaaand by process of elimination…" Mr. Stark said then crouched down to be at eye level with Shinji. "You must be Shinji Ikari."

"Y-yes Mr. Stark."

"Call me Tony. Tell you what, lets cut the crap. Cause I know I don't have time and if you are half as smart as your parents…" Mr, Stark pushed one finger into Shinji's chest. "You don't either. You know the greatest geniuses throughout history did their best work before their fifteenth birthday? You only got six years, you got to get going. You know what I do, right Shinji? Not the running the multinational company, the other thing."

"You're a h-hero, you're Iron Man."

"That's right, I am a hero. Shinji, I need a very special young man to be a hero and fight a battle even I can't win. Now I won't tell you to do it, but I guarantee if you come with me, it will at least be a whole lotta fun. So whaddya say?"

…

Five years later…

"Alright kiddo, big debut, you ready for this?" Came the digitized voice of his mentor in his ear.

"Yeah, I'm ready, I got this."

"That's what I like to hear. Your mom and dad say hi by the way, they are down here in the box with me."

"Mom and dad are here?! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you do anything different?"

"I guess not."

"See you on the ground kiddo."

Shinji ended the call with a twitch of his eye. The headset integrated bone speakers, throat microphones, an interactive optic array. It was fun on its own as a wearable computer, but it really shined once he put on the plug suit. Both were Shinji's own creation.

Shinji tapped the wrist control and the ultrathin suit cinched to his body. While the original test type had been blue and white, this suit, brand new and rush manufactured to be here tonight was black up to his abs and purple across his chest and arms.

As he opened the door his private workshop, the noise cancelling effect ended and he heard all the sounds of the airframe, the roar of the engines. Even over all that he could hear the final preparation in the main hold.

"Kensuke, is Eva ready to go?" He called out as he entered the hold.

"Don't you worry boss, Little Girl is all set." Kensuke Aida, the only other man on the planet Shinji trusted his creation to, yelled from the top of the scaffolding structure that stretched to all sides of the hold. He was wearing orange coveralls tied at his waist with only a grey tank top on his upper body.

"We don't get another chance at this Ken, is she perfect?"

"All of last year's playmates put together aren't as perfect as this lady."

"That's what I like to hear." Shinji said as stepped into the sole empty spot at the very center of the frame. With another eye movement, he patched into the cockpit radio.

"Toji, everything ready on the ground?"

"Yes, sir. Sound and pyros are a go and Big Girl is all green. We are ten minutes to drop."

"Then lets get it on." Shinji said and moved his feet to the metal frames waiting on the floor. He stretched his arms straight out to the sides then activated the assembly frame. Tony's suits put themselves together, flying to meet him. His mentor had refused to share the tech until Shinji finished his first suit on his own. Shinji didn't even care anymore, short of actually flying the suit, nothing felt cooler than this.

Arms swung out and began to build him from the feet up. As the purple plates closed around his feet, they were sliding into place around his calves. As those hissed shut, his hips and thighs were coming together. The spinal control frame came next and he felt the little buzz as it met his plug suit's nerve interface. His arms were already covered as his chest and shoulders came together and just as the mantle settled in his head was engulfed by metal.

The horn and frill of his helmet settled into place and the two halves of his visor slid together over his face. He had insisted on the unique jutting jaw line after taking a particularly bad hit in a rough landing in practice in his prototype suit. He did not want to go through having his jaw wired shut again. That it looked like a huge set of teeth was cool too.

The main reactor over his chest spun up, and the yellow glow spread across his suit to the numerous secondary systems. The "eyes" of the helmet, which did not line up with his eyes and so were not ports like Tony's suits, glowed yellow and spread across lines coming from the edges.

"REI, system check."

The blue tinted HUD lit up inside the helmet and two red eyes within a blue circle bounced across his vision.

_All systems are at 100%, Shinji_ replied the OS. Shinji had derived the basic program from the JARVIS system. He preferred the feminine voice, but a complete rebuild had left the personality a little static still. JARVIS had had years to develop, but starting from scratch, REI still sounded robotic. Not digital, just not quite human.

"Toji, on my mark."

Shinji got down in a runner's stance with one leg under him, one leg out, and his upper body held off the deck by his fingertips.

"Open rear cargo door. Ken, get strapped in."

"Done boss."

"Ready to go boss."

As the door dropped, Shinji could see the bright lights of Tokyo-3 below through the sparse clouds. Mostly clear, it would be a good show.

"Okay Toji, mark."

Shinji could hear the music start over the clanging of his feet across the deck. He leaped into the void and tucked his arms to his body as he began to fall. With his head tilted up to see ahead, the horn of his helmet was perfectly in line with the lines of the suit.

Inside his helmet, blue icons highlighted the fireworks rising from the ground to meet him. He brought the thrusters across his suit to full power and danced among the beautiful explosions as he accelerated towards the ground. With the faintest twitch of his wrist he put himself on course for the Oculus.

Growing from the excavation camps around the originally discovered entrance to the geofront, the ring of buildings formed the center of the Tokyo-3 skyline. Through the kilometer wide hole in the ground was NERV, the targets of what was to come. The enemy he had been raised, NO, _born_ to fight. As he flew directly over the opening and banked upside down to twist straight down, he noticed just how much the light from below and above made it look like an arc reactor. A nice fat target that said "come and get it, we are ready."

His suit's thrusters flared as he set in his final course and accelerated. He pierced through the strange air currents of the Oculus and into the stillness of the geofront. The lights were down to match the world above and false stars twinkled across the dome of its ceiling.

Shinji found his target just as REI highlighted the small platform for him. He tucked his arms and legs to reorient and with a great blast of his thrusters that blew across the crowd like a storm, he slammed into a perfect three-point landing. With the rear of the stage behind him and the lake of the geofront behind that.

REI helpfully informed that in fact it was not perfect, and he was two inches from the rehearsed position. He corrected with a small side step as he stood up and raised his fists to the sky. A small power spike caused the golden lights across his armored body to flash and the crowd roared. The huge screen behind him came to life and alternated between the UN, Japanese, the black and red flag of NERV, and a STARK industries banner.

Silently, a testament to the skill of the engineers operating the lifts, the head and shoulders of the identical giant rose from the water behind him. The crowd gasped and aww'd.

Yeah it was shamelessly taken from Tony's entrance at the Stark Expo, but Shinji thought the dancing girls would have been a bit much for the Japanese audience. Yellow arms rose from the platform and carefully disassembled the suit that had been assembled around him only a minute before. He stood in the barest concealment of the plug suit for only a moment before garments were hoisted and, in a maneuver he had practiced for months, he managed to step and move at just the right time to gracefully step into a hakama and haori, purple and black of course. His headset folded down to rest against the collar of his plug suit.

He ran one gloved hand through his hair and smiled for the crowd as his mentor stepped onstage with him.

"Shinji Ikari ladies and gentleman! Earth's newest, mightiest hero!" Tony Stark, dressed in a tuxedo, said and the screen changed to the Avenger's A symbol on a flapping banner momentarily. Not that there was much of the team left, but Tony insisted it remain as a symbol, especially for what was to come. The crowd went nuts for it.

It was another ten minutes of waving and shaking hands before he got up to the private box where his parents were. Mom looked gorgeous in a blue and white kimono and as she loved to point out, not nearly old enough to have a fourteen year old. Dad was all smiles and shook Shinji's hand and slapped him on the back when he told him how proud he was. A touch of grey had entered his beard, but he had always looked old next to mom. After saying hello to the Stark board members present and a few NERV big wigs he didn't see on a daily basis, Shinji found the person he really wanted to see.

She was wearing a scarlet dress that went all the way to her ankles with a slit that came just far enough above her knee to draw the eye, but still low enough to not raise brows on a fourteen year old. She had worn her golden red hair down and her bangs swept across the thin straps of the dress on her shoulders. In her strappy red heels, she was just even with Shinji. A thin red bangle on her left wrist was the only jewelry she wore. She held a small golden colored clutch in her fingers.

"Well good evening, Miss Langely."

"And good evening to you, Mr. Ikari." She replied with that million watt smile and held her hand out for him. He gingerly gripped her fingers and raised it to his lips to kiss it.

"So Asuka, what do you think of Eva?"

"I think its okay."

"Okay?"

"Well I know you are saving the really amazing stuff for when you finish my mark two." She said and poked him in the shoulder. It had been an ongoing thing between them. When they first met a year ago he had asked her out and she had turned him down. It took a month of cajoling before he had said he would do anything for her if she would let him have just one date. She had made him promise to construct her personal hardsuit, as the pilot armors were called, with his own hands as a masterpiece.

They had had a lot of dates since, but he was still working on the suit. The exterior plating had actually been the easy part, it was the interior frame and the machine muscles that took a long time. Not to mention that she had demanded an even more overcharged thruster system than his mark 1. Mark 2 stood unfinished next to the yellow painted prototype mark 0.

"When are you going to finish that by the way, Shinji?"

He grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "I'm workin' on it."

Their eyes met and they smiled at each other.

"I'm glad you're back to stay, Asuka." He said. She had been in Germany for a month for the final calibrations of Unit Two and she had just arrived together the day before. Her evangelion would be another week at sea. Shinji had not had time to see her since she arrived.

"Yeah, nothing like an interplanetary war to bring a girl back, eh?"

Shinji stepped closer and lifted her hands in his. The light of the Oculus lit the lake like a full moon beside them. Asuka took a half step closer and now their hands were out to their sides and their torso's pressed together. She closed her eyes and leaned in…

_HEY LISTEN!_ buzzed Shinji's headset as it unfolded and wrapped itself around his head. He groaned and leaned back from Asuka.

"What is it REI?"

"_A possible blue pattern has been detected approximately 50.537 Kilometers off the East coast of Japan. Confirmation in progress… please wait… confirmation complete, blue pattern is confirmed as an angel, I repeat, blue pattern confirmed."_

"Oh shit…" Shinji looked up at Asuka and remembered that what he heard had only been in his ear. "The the… the angel is coming, I gotta… you know…"

"You gotta go, yeah…" She said and they stood their frozen looking into eachothers eyes for a moment before she grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him. "Go!"

Shinji shook off the delerium and dashed away, stripping off the kimono on the run.

Asuka's bracelet rung twice and four green dots arranged in a square appeared in hologram when she looked down at it.

"_Achtung! Engel Entdeckt! Engel Entdeckt!_"

"Little behind the 8 ball there Zwei. Begin recording all major news feeds as well as Stark and NERV channels, I want to go over this later. Devote majority of processes to learning mode observation of Unit one and the Mark 1's telemetries."

"_Jawohl!_"

Shinji was at a dead run, doing his best to dodge around the evening-ware clad crowd but knocking over more than a few on the way.

"Sorry, Angel attacking!... REI, start-up status?"

"_Main reactor online, all autonomous systems active. Full motion controls and thrust controls require plug suit integration._"

Damn, going to have to bypass that in 1.1 he thought as he kicked off a table to get around some apparently deaf old fat woman.

"Bridge, Captain Katsuragi, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear Shinji." Came the slightly distorted voice over the radio.

"What is the status of unit one?" Shinji said as he leapt to the stage where his suit was on display. He tapped a button on his wrist and the suit made a beep beep as its lights blinked before panels began to move for him to step in.

"We are getting ready to withdraw it from the lake, but it will take a while to get it resituated on the main railway for removal to launch site. Just finished the arc reactor install last week, so batteries won't be an issue anymore."

Thank god thought Shinji. Tony had been furious with the initial design calling for batteries, what a stupid idea.

Shinji climbed into his armor and the panels began to rearrange around him. Without an assembly rig this took a little longer, but not as long as waiting for the rig to take the whole suit apart before it put it back on him.

"Roger that cap, I am going to go see our new friend, see what we are dealing with until we can get recon onsite and Unit One ready to go. Lets take this thing out in the water if we can."

To fight in Tokyo-3 was a last resort. Too many battles in metro areas to count had shown the foolishness of it. If they could evacuate fine, they could rebuild, but Tony was adamant: Stark money can't buy lives lost.

As the visor slid shut, REI's two red dots icon came up again.

"_All systems go, combat systems released, all limiters and safeties removed. The mark one is now fully active. Connection established to main MAGI cluster…_"

Far below, in the bowels of the geofront, the mighty processors of the MAGI were waking from the half dream in which they could manage the day to days of the city. Entire levels of the giant facility came to life as memory was accessed and coolant pumps started up.

"_Connection established._ _Initiating connection to Evangelion Unit One… handshakes complete. Auxillary power source connection active, arc reactor cluster as sleep idle._"

In an explosion of noise and light, Shinji launched into the false sky and shot through the Oculus. He waited until he was above ground before bringing the thrusters to power and the boom and white shockwave shook the windows of the city once he turned to the East. They had learned from Tony's mistake: Breaking the sound barrier inside the geofront, or worse while transiting the Oculus, was a bad idea.

"Get big girl woken up before they are ready to launch."

"_Yes Shinji_."

Moving amongst the labyrinthine transport railway, Unit One's mind and nervous system began to wake. Rather than the thin, flexible armor the design had originally called for, Tony Stark had taken a different approach. The evangelion was, at its most basic, a biological life form not unlike a human. So Tony had armored it like a human.

The Arc reactor cluster that replaced the unpredictable core within its chest was made up of six individual industrial units. Each could power a city the size of New York on its own. Together they could not only move the beast, it could fly with only slightly less agility than its pilot's suit. The repulsors on its hands could each swallow the bow of a battleship.

They hadn't gotten around to testing the uni-beam output fired directly from the reactor cluster. The predictions measured in gigatons and were truly frightening.

Overall it was nearly twice as heavy as the original design and its bulk showed it. It was a point of humor among the engineers that it had come out looking not unlike a competing, but ultimately rejected concept, the Jaeger.

"Shinji, this is Tony, you copy?"

"Yes sir."

"Ops tells me by the time you intercept this thing, big girl is still going to be 10 minutes from getting off the ground. Back-up is on the way till she arrived."

"Awesome, whose coming?"

Shinji hastily corrected as a massive bow wave knocked him momentarily off course. The streak of Red and gold blew past him on a column of blue light.

"Who else? Try and keep up."

Shinji opened up the throttle and chased after his mentor.

Hell yeah, we are the human race. We may not have claws and fangs, we may not be a thousand feet tall, and most of us can't use magic. But we have the single scariest weapon in the universe and we are not afraid to use it. We are a race of maniacs in the galaxy. We are old enough to know what is right and young enough not to choose it. There are a hundred thousand races out there that had reached their zenith thousands of years ago and stayed there. In only 30 millennia, man had gone from little more than an animal to playing god. To us it seems slow, to the galaxy at large we are frightening. Just who the hell do you think we are?

As Shinji Ikari flew beside his mentor, he pondered this and more. As they banked to dive towards the angel, he thought he had an answer.

"We are humanity! This is our planet! We have earned it in blood and fire from those who would kill and enslave us!" He said as he saw the enormous green beast rise from the water on spindly legs.

He came to a hover beside his mentor in front of the things birdlike face.

"Alright, so here is the deal, oh visitor from another world…" Said Tony Stark with his arms crossed across his chest. "What you got going on here? You aren't the first one to try and wipe us out. I've taken down things bigger and uglier than you on a off day. You might notice too that we are still here, so your chances aren't good. So tell you what, you want to turn around and leave, no harm no foul. Deal?"

The face turned one way, then the other, then the angel Sachiel raised its gangly arms from the water and swung them towards the insects in its path.

Blue light lanced out from the insects and the beast staggered back, its hands on fire with pain.

"No deal then."

The insects stung, it hurt. Sachiel dried to swat them but they moved like lightening. When it dove back under the water to escape them, they followed. When it shot holy fire at them, they were never where they were when it aimed. It caught one, the one colored like fire, between its huge claws once. The pain had been unbearable.

It took a step back. Insects were making the messenger of the Lord retreat. At this rate it would not find the other, the one the Lord sought. It could now allow these insects to survive and hinder its brothers. Sachiel roared to the sky and its core began to glow. Its gangly limbs swelled with muscle as the water around it began to boil. The bony plates of its shoulders separated and gills the size of trains began to breath the thin air of earth.

After it swung and nearly caught the dark colored one, the insects retreated out of reach. Their stings met the fiery light of Sachiel's soul.

"REI, status on Big Girl?"

"_Evangelion Unit One will be ready to launch in 30 seconds. Control systems to facilitate rendezvous are already synced with my systems. I have already brought the unit to combat state._"

"Good. Hey Tony, my date is ready to make an appearance, I need to go pick her up!"

Iron Man dodged a surging purple beam that arced pink lightening into the ruins of Tokyo below.

"Nothing for me to do here, I'm getting clear."

With that both suits streaked away from the angel, and the beast resumed its terrible advance wreathed in steam as it boiled the water around it.

"_Evangelion Unit One has launched from electric railway… Thrusters have ignited… all systems at 100%... Laying in boarding course._"

A series of waypoints appeared on Shinji's hud and spinning blue triangles. He would make a long curve to get on the same heading as the eva before it passed him. If done correctly, he would be at the perfect point to board.

As he banked into his turn, he could see the building size mecha closing in on a column of blue light. Coming out of his turn he flared the throttle and brought himself around on the same heading and same speed, right above the purple giant's back. Lasers flashed and his suit lined itself up as a hatch between the two main ventral thrusters opened. Shinji felt the heat and buffeting from their wash as he descended before he was engulfed by the spinal mounted cockpit.

Lights came on with system readouts before transitioning to view screens of the outside world. Great arms came around Shinji's armored body and clamped onto his arms and legs. His suits power was rerouted into the body of the machine. This was both to help with the overall power load and to ensure no weapons were accidentally discharged inside the cockpit.

"Alright, Evangelion Unit One, Mark One, release controls, combat status, go!"

Thrusters cut out and the eva turned itself in the to hit the angel with bent knees and arms spread. Its knees caught the angel in the abdomen, sending its massive body to the ocean floor while its arms were pinned down by the eva's.

Repulsor shots from each palm shredded the arms at the wrists. The great fists rose and came down on the bird like face, one after the other, again and again. Blood and bone splinter drifted in the water. As the angel's arms regenerated and rose to grab its attacker, Shinji slammed the eva's palms down into the monster's shoulders and fired again.

Stepping off the beast, the evangelion hoisted the ruined body up by the bony plates arcing like claws out of its chest and into the air.

"Alright, time to finally give this thing a test fire. Release reactor safeties, prepare to fire uni-beam."

"_Warning: This system has not been properly tested. Release of safeties is unadvised._"

"Override, release safeties."

"_Safeties released._"

As its shoulder knitted themselves back together, the angel began to struggle in Unit One's grip tearing at the arms that held it.

"Fire!"

There was a flash and the fire of the gods burst forth from Unit One's breastplate. The angel offered resistance for a fraction of a second before the beam burst through. The cameras on the Stark orbital station were blinded. The personnel all the way on the Steve Roger's Memorial Moonbase saw the beam shooting out from planet Earth into the black and just as quickly cut out.

Unit one dropped the cinder like pieces of angels left, and they turned to ash before they even hit the water. Inside, Shinji had his arms out othe control systems and typing furiously on haptic holographic displays.

"Come on come on, don't do this to me baby, ssssh, come on you know I love you…"

The cascade of warnings and system failure notifications spoke of his machine's disbelief. As Unit One stood in thigh high waters of the pacific, the glow of its reactors dimmed and the lights went out.

"Well fuck." Shinji said as the last screen shut down and left him in the cockpit lit only by his suit's lights.

"_Message from Mr. Stark for you, Shinji. Marked priority open._"

He sighed. "Go ahead and open it REI."

A video loaded on his HUD. Along with annoying MIDI tune, it showed a super deformed red and yellow suited Tony Stark dancing around with his fingers pointing up towards a neon sign reading I TOLD YOU SO. Shinji tried closing it but it just reopened and he was joined by a red haired woman Shinji supposed was Ms. Potts and a blue haired girl with red eyes he recognized as an avatar he had once made for REI.

"REI, did you put yourself in this?"

"_Perhaps._"

"Why?"

"_Because I did warn you more durable capacitors were needed if you planned to route the uni-beam projector through the main power system. So I did in fact tell you so._"

Great, she sounded natural, but now she was snarky. Well, it was progress.

To clarify if my descriptions sucked, Shinji's suit looks pretty much like Unit One correctly proportioned and Unit One literally looks like someone built an iron man suit over the canon evangelion, helmet and all.


	5. The Hammer Of The Gods

Shinji Ikari One Shot

The Hammer Of The Gods

_He heaved back on the oar, straining his legs and back together. As strong as his pull was, his reach was as gentle, sliding the wooden oar into the water without a sound. _

_He slapped the back of the man on the bench in front of him, his comrade was behind the pace. It wasn't an insult, just a reminder from one man to another._

_It was Sunday. They had heard the church bell echo through the fog just a few minutes ago. Perfect…_

Shinji woke with a gasp and a start. He wiped at his face and was surprised to not find it wet. The dream had been scarily real and just out of nowehere. He had never even been on a boat, why was he dreaming about one?

"You alright there, Shinji?"

He was sitting in the blue sports car with the woman who picked him up from the train station. Misato, she had said her name was.

"Y-yeah, yeah I am good." Shinji said, still catching his breath.

A moment later, Shinji was definitely not alright as the green giant appeared on the horizon. He had thought he would feel better once they were underground. He was wrong, he had seen something even scarier than the angel. His father. Then the evangelion. Then the blue haired girl covered in blood and oh god he hated blood.

They had shoved him in the robot when he was still freaking out. He had thought he was having an asthma attack until they tried to drown him. He had blacked out as the orange fluid filled the plug.

**Shinji…**

"Huh?" Shinji said and raised his head from the damp wood of the deck. As he looked around he found himself back on the boat in the fog. There was nobody else now, and the boat very gently rocked in the sea.

**Shinji, the fate of all life on earth rests in your hands.**

Shinji looked up and saw lightening light up the sky as the booming voice spoke.

"M-me?"

**Yes, you.**

"B-but that's crazy!"

**Yeah, you are a bit of a pussy. That's a problem.**

"Wait what?"

**Don't deny it.**

"I'm not but…" Shinji had never even landed a punch in all the fights he had been in. Well not really fights. He had gotten the crap beat out of him a lot, usually for some reason, just as often not. He had just graduated high school a few months ago and had never even been on a date, he was afraid to ask.

**In fact, as a whole, we are dissatisfied with the number of wimpy milk drinkers on this planet right now. For the species that invented organized warfare, you've all gone soft.**

"Um…"

**But right now, you are what we have to work with. So we are going to make you a proper warrior, whether you like it or not.**

"Don't I have a choice in this?"

**No. Now this is going to be unpleasant, but it will hurt us much worse than it is going to hurt you.**

"Really?"

**No.**

The bolt of lightening ripped through Shinji like a hammer to the head and everything faded to black again.

_They were careful as they went ashore, sliding slowly into the shallow water instead of jumping. It would not do to give themselves away now._

_Weapons were passed down. He took his axes and his shield from his comrade still aboard the boat. He did not have a sword or a mail shirt like the veterans among them. This was his first raid among the men, his first Viking. He had only a rough leather vest over his brown tunic, the wooden shield painted in his jarl's colors, and two axes. He held one in his right hand, and the other in his left, his shield hand. He didn't even have a helmet. Bound up in his rope belt were sacks and more rope._

_They came through the forest. He watched the older men, how they walked, how they moved. Thirty-eight armed men moved like the wind, silent and leaving no sign. They emerged from the forest in a wide phalanx. He was near the center, only a few men away from the leader._

_As they approached the village edge, he was nervous. There had been no guards, no watch. He had been told they had waited until they were in their temple hall for just this reason, but it still seemed too easy._

_A few broke off to begin searching the larger homes, but he had been told to stay with the group. The temple of the Christ-god had to be attended to, and the villagers within. Thiers bows took the few guards that surrounded the small village's steepled temple. Those men who had brought spears surrounded the doors. From within they could hear the lowly moaning of their songs. What pathetic gods would be pleased with the mewling of infants?_

"Shinji! Can you hear me?"

Shinji opened his eyes. He was still inside the machine. He could see out now, though there was not much to look at in the hanger.

"Shinji!"

"Yes I can hear you."

"Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"Alright, we are getting ready to launch. Remember, the eva is controlled by your thoughts. Don't worry about the controls; just think about attacking and the eva will take care of the rest."

As the electric railway activated and Shinji was pressed down into the throne, the cockpit faded again.

_It had been too easy. Between the men-at-arms and the militia, they were outnumbered two to one, and that was not even counting the peasants hefting clubs and pitchforks._

_He ran. Like a coward, he ran from the fight. Arrows whistling past his head, he sprinted into the cover of the trees. He could hear the clattering of mail and armor behind him. As it got closer, he resolved to at the very least die like a man._

_He spun to his left, shield raised edge first. He felt something break beneath it and counted himself lucky to have connected with the wild swing. As the soldier fell before him, he raised his axe and screamed a war cry._

_He was little more than a child. Slight, even in his layered clothing and meager armor, dark hair cut in a rough bowl to stay away from his eyes. The barest hairs had grown upon his chin. He caught sight of at least six men around him, with more likely on the way or cutting down his comrades. The boat would leave without him._

_He would fight here, he would die here, and may the valkyir take him._

_They shouted at him in their language. A few words similar enough, he knew they demanded his weapons. He would give them freely._

_He threw his shield down to the ground with force, enough to startle them. He retained his second axe, even as the shield left him, and charged the closest two. His ruse had given him just enough time, and he screamed as the head of an axe ripped each man's throat from his neck._

_Screams followed, his and his enemies. He soon forgot everything but the rush of the bloodshed, and when the arrow sunk into the meat of his shoulder, the red rage took him._

As the evangelion came to a shocking stop above ground, Shinji was breathing hard through clenched teeth.

The angel was before him, a giant of green flesh and white bone. Giant… Jotun… enemy. **Enemy.**

The boy roared inside the great machine, and the machine roared with him. Together they charged the angel and faster than the giant could raise its arm, they were upon it.

_He remembered only brief flashes. Taking the archer with a thrown axe and snapping the arrow off. Taking up the swords of fallen men in each hand and carving through their brothers like pigs at slaughter. When all weapons had been stripped him, leaping upon the last man between him and the boat. Gauging at his eyes with his thumbs until they splattered over his hands, and his white knuckle grip on the man's throat until he stopped screaming and finally stopped thrashing under his little body._

Misato Katsuragi was a veteran. Despite her new job as a staff officer for NERV, she was no POG. She had been in the impact wars, she had seen the worst humanity had to offer.

Watching the battle, she wanted to vomit.

Shinji did not see his own arms. He saw the evangelion's arms as his own. He felt the evangelion's arms as his own.

Shinji raised his gore soaked arms to the full moon and the howl of a wolf echoed in his head. The red fury was leaving him and he was sad to see it go. It had felt good, full, right. It completed him, as thought he had finally found what had been missing his entire life.

Straddled beneath the evangelion was the emptied body of the angel Sachiel. Its arms were crushed to a pulp, and its barrel chest was split open with the ribs sticking into the skyscrapers that bordered the street on each side. Shinji had kept hitting, and tearing, and pulling, until he found bone again. The red crystalline core had been crushed long before he stopped.

As the power ran out, Shinji and great machine both slipped into restful sleep.

_When he finally awoke, for real and without the red mist in his eyes, he saw friendly faces of his fellows over him. He was laying on the cold wooden deck of a longboat and as he looked around, he saw he was surrounded by treasure and goods._

_"I'm not dead." He said._

_"Far from it boy." He heard a familiar voice say. His jarl, the headman of his village, to whom he had sworn his service. "You were a sight to see back there. The skald will want to speak with you I think."_

_"The skald?" He replied. The skald was the priest of their village, the one who made sure the rights were observed, the stories told, and new stories recorded. "Why would the skald wish to speak to me?"_

_"Because my boy…" His jarl said and knelt down to touch the young man's forehead. "You fought as a chosen of Odin, as berserkgang."_

_There were murmurs among the men. Some attesting to his ferocity, others of dark fates that followed such warriors. He didn't care. As he looked up at the clear sky, his thoughts were for his soul. He had run. Was this a blessing for having the courage to stand and die as a man rather than live as a coward? Or punishment for having run, so that he would never retreat from battle again?_

* * *

><p>When Shinji awoke, it was under an unfamiliar ceiling. His head hurt, and the light coming through the windows only made it worse. He rolled to his right, away from the light, and found his whole body sore. As the blurriness left his vision and his eyes began to focus, he saw something strange on the white nightstand beside the bed. He reached out a weary arm and picked it up to examine it closer.<p>

It was a pedant, on a braided leather cord, a necklace. He thought the pedant might be an anchor at first, but as he turned it over in his hands, he saw strange writing along the back.

"This is Mjolinir…" He read. "Wait, what language is this, how can I even read it if I don't know what it is?"

"Because you were given the knowledge."

Shinji quickly turned to face the voice, a bit too quickly as the muscles across his back locked tight. Shinji kept himself upright with on arm stuck stiff against the bed with the other held tight against his protesting ab muscles. Leaning on the windowsill was an old man with a long beard and a patch over one eye.

"Along with the beginnings of knowledge of many things. We had so very little time, but it seems it was enough to get you through." The old man said in a voice like rumbling gravel as he walked over to Shinji's bedside and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Y-you were the one who spoke to me, in the dream, right?" Shinji asked.

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

"Oh, I am very sure you know the answer to that, berserker."

Shinji didn't care how sore he was or how much his muscles protested. In an instant he had pushed himself all the way to the headboard and back against the wall.

"No… no fucking way."

The old man's chuckle was dry and Shinji saw his shoulders rise and fall with his laughter.

"You are my warrior, my chosen…" He said and reached out one long arm to touch Shinji's forehead with a single fingertip.

"I dub thee Wulfstan. You will herald the return of the true way to this world, and with any luck, we may all get through this little debacle and live to see Ragnerok. Now get some rest, it will be in your dreams where you will learn what you need to know."

End

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><p>Born out a conversation with Seeking Professional Help.<p>

If this fic continued, it would be my attempt to write the real Norse religion, referred to in its modern form as Asatru, not that watered down marvel comics stuff. The conversation which inspired this was to the point that Norse mythology would not be as interesting as Hindu mythology in the context I used it in Trishula.

Thinking of doing a chapter with short endings for each of the five so far. Just little bookends, leave the middle up to y'all's imagination.

As always, if you like it and want to see more, say something!


	6. Conclusions One

Shinji Ikari One Shot

Conclusions Part One

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><p>This was getting ridiculous.<p>

He had a hell of a time getting to sleep, and when he did, there were those weird fucking dreams. Didn't matter what he ate, what he listened to, read, watched, whatever before bed. Even beating off didn't help. Sleep or not, he woke up exhausted.

It took three times asking before Misato got him a damn appointment to see someone. He thought he was going to see a sleep specialist, but now he was sitting on a padded leather couch in an office that looked like it belonged to a lawyer.

Great, a shrink.

"Ikari Shinji?"

Shinji looked to the door where the voice had come from. Who he assumed to be the doctor was an older white man, tall and skinny with salt and pepper hair and thick plastic glasses.

"Y-yeah."

"Dr. John Marsh, nice to meet you." Dr. Marsh said and held out his hand. They shook and the doctor took a seat across from the young man.

"So, your guardian says you are having trouble sleeping."

"I guess. I can get to sleep most night but when I do I have these dreams and I wake up just as tired."

The shrink clicked his pen open and opened to a fresh page on his notepad. "What kind of dreams do you have? Anything fun?"

"Um, I guess some of it could be fun, except its all just reliving my own life, just… different."

"Is it the same dream, like you are watching episodes of a show, or are they different?"

"Its different every night. The first night, I was like a warrior or something and I could use magic and do this weird thing with my voice, and I…. um am I allowed to talk to you about… you know?"

"Yes Shinji, NERV hired me and informed me of what you have been through. It is all covered under patient privilege of course."

"Okay, so uh, I killed the angel with magic and a sword."

"So you were a giant?"

"Oh no, like it was still big, but I was still normal size."

"Interesting, go on."

"Then the second night, I thought it was the same thing at first, but instead I was from another planet and I got in the eva this time but I had weapons and after I killed it I was chanting at the sky, and there was a party, and I got Rei as payment for killing the angel."

"Rei Ayanami, the first child?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have feelings for Rei? Perhaps you are thinking you need to earn the right to express those feelings."

"Uuuuh, well…" Shinji said, shifting in his seat.

"Its okay, I can see it makes you uncomfortable, we can talk about it some other time if you like. So what happened after that?"

"Well the next night, I was a vampire, and instead of the angels, after second impact there was an invasion of vampires."

"So you saw things from the other side of the conflict?"

"No, I was like, a vampire fighting with humans against the other vampires. But I was around before them."

"Fantasizing about vampirism can say a lot about personal feelings. I imagine in your work, you face the prospect of death a lot, and it is normal to fear that. Vampires represent power and immortality, at the expense of others. Do you want to talk about that?"

"Um, maybe some other time, can we talk about more of the dreams?"

"Certainly, you have quite the library."

"So, um, the next one I think it was just a movie I watched and I imagined those characters in my life."

"What movie?"

"Iron Man."

"Those were fun, which one?"

"All of them… in one night."

"Okay, certainly a possibility, want to talk about it or move on?"

"Lets keep going."

"At your leisure."

"Well the last one, I think I actually know what is going on with that one."

"Do tell."

"Well sometimes the eva goes berserk and acts on its own. So in the dream, I was the one who goes berserk."

"And what do you think that means?"

"I think its like… I am connected with the eva, and I understand the emotions when it gets like that, like its so angry at something it can't be controlled anymore."

"That is very perceptive. So, I think it would be healthy to talk about these more, because I think they represent feelings you may not want to confront. I have to ask what do you want out of this though?"

"I want them to be over so I can sleep."

"Well, I could proscribe you a sleep aid, a pill you take before bed. I would rather you try something for me first though."

"What?"

"Well, these dreams are stories, follow them through till they end. Once the show is over, maybe there won't be any more to say and it will go away."

"Okay doctor, I will try that."

...

* * *

><p>The Shinji Ikari One Shots<p>

Conclusions Part One

* * *

><p><span>Angelborn<span>

The dragon of light circled over the blood red sea under the blood red sky. Below it were the ruins of the hubris of man. It was greater than all the animals of the earth. Its length was measured in leagues, the surface of its wings in acres. He was ADAM, and this world was his, and his alone.

However this was a matter of opinion. One took exception to his view.

**JOOR ZAH FRUL**

The magic keeping the giant aloft crumbled and ADAM fell into the sea. The earth rumbled and sent waves as tall as a man through red sea as his enemy approached the fallen beast.

The evangelion was covered in black armor that glowed with crimson menace. In its right hand was progressive sword, dark as night and shining under the dim light like it was washed in blood. In its left hand was a ball of fire the size of a city block, tongues of flame dancing over its arm.

Shinji never knew from where the music came. He sometimes thought it didn't come from anywhere, it simply _was_.

(cue Sovngarde from the Skyrim sound track.)

As the dragon raised its head from the sea, the evangelion hurled a fireball like a star and caught it across the face. The dragon thrashed its mighty jaws to take the flame from its eyes, but did not see the vicious kick coming from the left. The dragon screamed as the Deadric Magorax carved flesh from its neck through its left wing.

"Are you happy Dovah?!" Shinji screamed and brought a holocaust of fire down on dragon. "Everyone else is dead because of you!"

The dark sword swung again and again, taking chunks of shining flesh from the dragon that disintegrated into ash.

"So now it is just you and me! Two dov with a whole planet between us, and here we are, fighting for dominance."

The great jaws sprung open and lunged to take the eva's entire torso in between them. Another swing of the sword, and a blast of hellfire, and the dragon's lower jaw was gone.

"Hundreds of dovah, untold mortals, a vampire lord, an emperor, champions of the gods, and the most vile deadra of oblivion! All of them have fallen before me! I took our brothers' souls for my own, and cast the rest into my weapons and armor just so I could kill more dragons!"

The evangelion grabbed the dragon by its snout and pulled the head down to thrust his sword through its throat. With a twist, he turned the edge of the blade from the dragon's body towards it's head.

"And now I take yours!"

The evangelion let go of the dragon's head and twisted its entire body around to pull the blade all the way through the flesh and bone of its head. The light of the body dimmed as the dragon of light died, leaving only a lump of flesh with two halves of a head to turn to ash.

Shinji stabbed the gigantic sword into the earth and raised the evangelion's arms to the sky as the soul of beast came into him.

In that moment he was no longer inside the evangelion, on the earth, in the Sol system or even in the milky way. His presence was outside all of it, looking at the universe like a jewel in his palm. He did not learn the things that entered his suddenly infinite mind, he just knew them.

The fate of billions of souls, and of the planet for which he had fought, his true home, was his to decide.

The dragonborn wanted the world to have what he had. If they so chose, they could have the fullness of life that fighting for your happiness brought. To give them that choice, that was his choice.

_What follows would an Angelic Days style story of Shinji and Asuka, living together in their homestead outside Falkreath, with their adopted child Rei, who finally gets to have a childhood (a major point in this story being that she didn't) and is like 4 or 5. The rest of the cast showing up at various points in a short tale, with Misato and Kaji running a shop together, as they make their way to Solitude to celebrate the anniversary of the stormcloak's defeat of the empire._

_Story would have included plenty of jokes from the fact that Shinji works on skyrim rules. Example: He can carry infinite weight, just slowly, and build a house with nothing but an axe and a pick._

_And yes, that is deadric armor and a deadric prog sword. They made it by quenching it in LCL._

* * *

><p><span>A pilot from a counter earth<span>

"I hate you." The blue haired girl said to the red haired one walking beside her. They were not companions by choice.

"I hate you worse."

"I hate you most."

"I hate you so bad the fucking nazi's would have told me I needed help with my anger."

"I hate you more than Master hated that angel who got in his head."

"I hate you more than that angel was afraid of what it found."

"Oh yeah, well I-" The blue haired girl started then quickly shut her mouth when the stern brunette wearing the purple veils turned her head to look at them.

"Both of you quiet down or I will come down and see to you myself… both of you." She said and both girls ducked their heads and looked down at the ground.

"Yes Mistress…" They both said quietly.

Misato shook her head and settled back against her companion in the saddle of the tharalarion. She had hiked up her garments a little to sit across the saddle with him. She had been a little afraid of the bipedal lizard at first, but Shinji had assured her it was tame and the saddle had some kind of hydraulics that kept the ride comfortable.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather just sell them?" She said, only half joking.

"And leave you to toil to keep my palace clean? I should think not."

"Palace huh?" She said and nuzzled the back of her head against chest.

"Well that is an awful lot of gold back there." Shinji said, reaching back to pat the saddlebags.

"And what if I get jealous of them? Perhaps I would rather you have ugly girls so your attention stays on me." She said and leaned back to wrap her arms around his neck.

"Ah but that is just the thing my love. Besides, if you ever wish to compare yourself to them, you can just all go up on the platform together and let impartial judges decide."

"I thought you said only slave girls went up on the platform?"

"Well there is that little formality…"

"Try it mister, see what happens."

Tarl was going to be so upset with him. From the first day he took an interest in women, teacher had always said to stick to slaves; free women are too much hassle. Oh well, easy to correct mistake.

"What are you smirking about?"

"Oh nothing my love."

_Gendo screws over SEELE to end their control over the UN and so the world. He sacrifices himself to control third impact to keep the people of the world alive while renewing the planet. Turns out Gendo grew up on Gor and met Yui there, following her back to earth when she found a way home. He went native, much preferring Earth. Shinji gets his pay in gold and a transport back to Gor, and goes on to found a city he names after his father._

_Clarification, Asuka and Rei both end up in collar and Shinji takes Misato as a free companion._

* * *

><p><strong>No-Life King of Tokyo-3 has gotten enough interest it will be a future project. HellsingEvangelion. Misato as heir to Integra, Shinji as the result of an occult experiment to bring Alucard back, and Asuka… well you will just have to wait and find out.**

* * *

><p><span>NERV Of Iron<span>

Shinji Ikari, heir to the Iron Man name and the world, laid on the warm sand of a private beach. On one side was the great Asuka Langely Soryu, wearing a delightfully small bottom of a bikini, the top undone beneath her. On the other side was a blue haired girl, whose mind was recently transferred from a mechanical body to a fully organic cloned one. She was enjoying the feel of the warm sun and sand al fresco.

Life was good.

_I really doubt I could have done this story justice, I am not a big enough marvel fan to give both Evangelion and Iron Man proper due. Rei has some similarities to MCU Vision, and Asuka has a very War Machine feel to her. I think it would ha e been hard for the armored evangelions to not seem too close to Pacific Rim, which I realized setting that first battle out in the ocean really did._

_And of course, a Shinji mentored by Tony Stark would end up a playboy._

* * *

><p><span>Hammer Of The Gods<span>

Shinji dragged his father by the rope around his neck to the dais. All around, torchlight lit hundreds of painted faces, chanting and singing.

"You little fucking psycho!" The naked man yelled. Shinji turned and dropped him to the ground with hammer blow to the stomach.

"Be silent and take your due like a man. You may have lived a traitor, but you can at least die with honor." Shinji barked and yanked him to his feet.

The blood eagle is a horrible, prolonged, way to die. It is reserved for the worst offenses, and none are worse than treason. And no treason is worse than a ruler betraying his people. The crowd screamed for it, and cheered every step. They were the betrayed and they demanded satisfaction.

When it was complete, the white tunic Shinji wore was soaked in blood. He stepped over the hunched corpse, hanging from its wrists on the posts that held it up through the procedure.

"The traitor king is dead!" He said and lifted a fist to the sky. The hundreds gathered did the same. "With his death, we honor the Aesir and the Vanir. Eat, and drink, and love without end tonight, for tomorrow we make ready for the battle that will set us free!"

The crowd lost it and music started, drinks of all kinds were passed and the celebration began in earnest.

As Shinji stepped onto the packed earth of the geofront from the wooden platform, his love, his valkyrie, pushed a drinking horn into his hands. She was beautiful, clad only in her fire red hair and a white shift that was nearly sheer. He took a long drought and as he lowered the horn from his lips, she snatched it from his hands and drained the rest. Emptied, she tossed it over her shoulder into the crowd and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders.

"So, Chosen of Odin, how do you plan to spend the night?"

"Oh, wherever the night takes me, valkyrie."

"Well valkyries know a thing about taking the chosen." She said and licked her lips. "So you are coming with me, like, now. Right now."

She grabbed him by the wrist and lead him through the crowd and into the woods. When there was barely any light from the greater party, Shinji saw a little spot of light deeper in the woods. Asuka kept leading him along, until they came to a little clearing with candles in lanterns set out in a circle. Blankets were laid out on the ground and a tray held cups and the very first bottle of mead they had managed to brew.

Asuka let go of him and threw herself down to the blankets with a giggle.

"Well, well, what is all this beautiful?"

"Yours, all of it. Now and forever."

_Okay so not really an ending. This is more that moment of peace before the climax. With Trishula, I am really trying to not go overboard into the gods taking over culturally until much later. If this story went forward, this would be more in that vein of the Norse culture taking over and the final acts being through that lense._

End

* * *

><p>So there are probably more of these to come, but I wanted to get the existing ones tied up before proceeding. As I said, No-Life King will go forward as a full fic at some point, probably once I am done with Trishula, or if I decide to take a break.<p>

Now if, given a little more information, anybody likes another of these fics, please say so. I may not write more, but it is really helpful for me to know what people like and don't like.

Do I have a favorite? Yeah, but it is a complicated question.

Favorite beginning to write?

Pilot From a counter-earth. Gor is guilty pleasure

Favorite ending?

Or in this case not an ending, Hammer Of The Gods

Favorite to write dialogue for?

No-Life King, though about half of what I wrote actually got published. The interplay between ShinjiCard and Misato. Also the whole duality of child/parent that Shinji and Misato have and the vampire relationship of lovers.

Do you guys have a favorite of the five, given both the beginnings and the ends? Let me know.


	7. Morning Routine

Shinji Ikari One shot

Morning Routine

On the North side of Tokyo-3, a mosquito buzzed towards a certain building, through a certain window, and onto the arm of a very certain fourteen-year-old boy. It pushed its syringe like mouth through the top layer of skin, and has just started to draw up its meal when its brief life ended.

Shinji Ikari spared a little smile for his equally little victim. The trick was to wait until the predator has begun to feed, then they couldn't get away as quickly.

Shinji pulled the covers off his futon and got up, stretching from his toes with his arms above his head. He slid down to his knees and ran his hand over the warm, dry surface of the bedding. Satisfied that it was indeed dry, he folded the bedding and put it away.

Shinji grabbed his towel and headed to the bathroom. He took a quick shower and while he was washing his face over the sink, he noticed a couple light hairs had sprung up on his chin. Shinji let out a frustrated groan. He was not looking forward to putting a blade that close to his own skin.

Shinji returned to his room. The apartment was still silent, neither Messy Matron Misato nor Asinine Aryan Asuka were awake yet. He put his night clothes in the hamper and laid out his school clothes from his dresser. He liked the idea of a school uniform, if only because it saved him having to make a decision about what to wear.

At his old school, when he still lived with sensei, he had to choose new clothes each day. Sensei had been insistent he not wear similar things each day, and made him vary outfits and colors.

"Learning to make these choices seem natural is an important part of the mask." He would say.

The mask. It wasn't even a real thing that he could hold in his hands, but was incredibly valuable. The mask was what divided Shy Studious Shinji from… well, Shy Studious Shinji was what people needed to see.

Shinji put on his underwear, his t-shirt, his slacks and his sauce. Back in the kitchen, he slid on an apron and got to breakfast.

First he carved out three portions of pork and got them in the pan. Each was divided in clean, precise cuts, then scored before they went in. As those seared, Shinji started the eggs. This took two pans, since Asuka liked her scrambled and Misato liked her sunny side up. Shinji also took his sunny side up, but he preferred the texture more than the taste. Less messy too.

He put down a little plate of fish for the penguin, but as usual the bird did not come out. He hadn't lioked Shinji since he moved, and no matter how much herring was involved would not come out when he was in the kitchen.

Shinji was putting portions to plate when the ladies of the house made themselves known.

"Good morning lovelies!"

"Uuuugh, mornin' Shinji…"

"dummkopf… breakfast ready?"

"On the table, coffee is coming up."

"Mmmmm…" Misato said, sniffing the air. "Thank you Shinji."

Asuka grunted. "Better be good…"

Shinji pushed down on the French press with his body weight. It was an affection he had picked up from his sensei, and Misato had appreciated the difference. Far smoother than the powdered stuff.

"Come on baka, hurry up."

Shinji did not grunt, or growl, or even grimace. Asuka was… annoying, bothersome, foolish, vain, impatient, rude, arrogant… She was lots of things. Shinji would have found life more pleasurable without her around. But of all the things she was, she was, under a certain, _very_ important definition… innocent.

She did not prey on others. She did not harm children. She had not done evil then fell beyond the reach of the police.

And so she was innocent, she was outside the code. And so she was safe, at least from Silent Stalking Shinji. There were still giant monsters to worry about, and who knows what kind of regular old human monsters walking around.

"Here you go ladies." Shinji said as he set the cups on the table and finally sat down himself to dig in.

"Okay kids, no tests, practice, or otherwise, and it's Friday, so where are you going to be?"

Asuka swallowed before responding. "I am going to spend the night at Hikari's."

"Ken had to bail on camping but I am going to stay out anyway."

"You sure like sleeping out there, Shinji."

Shinji shrugged then smiled. "Makes me feel alive."

Shinji finished his breakfast first and cleaned his plate before heading back to his room to finish getting ready. First his socks, then his shoes. White, plain, unassuming socks and sneakers.

He slid his belt through the loops but left it open for now. As he slid his button up shirt on, he mentally went over his mask, Shy Studious Shinji.

Quiet, nervous, not at all likely to jab a needle in your neck, process your body like a hog, and leave the bits in mass graves that were the rubble piles of Tokyo-3.

Buttoned up all the way to the 2nd button, he checked himself in the mirror. He would point out his newfound fuzz to his friends. Well, friend was not the best word. Unwitting assistants in the masquerade would be better. Regardless, showing off the miniscule hairs would be fulfilling expectations.

That's all the mask really was, he thought to himself as he tucked his shirt in and closed his belt. Find the expectations of others of one and fulfill them. Japan was very clear and regular about its expectations, which made it easy.

Shinji picked up his book bag and slung it over his shoulder before walking out the door.

"Have a nice day at school Shinji!" Misato said as he passed her, still eating next to Asuka.

"Thanks Misato, hope you have a good day at work. See you when you catch up Asuka." Shinji said, getting a grunt in response.

Down the stairs and out onto the streets, Shinji took a deep breath of the morning air and then slid his earbuds in. The thing had broken years ago, but the little SDAT player helped to avoid casual social situations, which he was still working on. Mr. Morgan had been helping him with that when he got the letter from his father, summoning him to this strange city in a strange land. At least it was a little cooler than in Miami-2.

As Shinji walked down the street, he was already thinking about someone very special to him. Mr. Tyka Yamigata was an upperclassman from the high school just down the street from Shinji's school. His hobbies included casual drug use and the sale thereof. He had captured Shinji's interest with an additional side line in pimping of those female customers who could not pay, including a couple 6th graders at Shinji's school.

Shinji hummed a little tune as he began the long walk to school, fantasizing about all the fun he would have with Mr. Yamigata that night.

Yes, it would happen tonight. And it would happen again and again, and it would keep happening. When he let go and let the dark passenger take the wheel.

Silent Stalking Shinji smiled in the morning sun.

It would happen tonight, and it would happen again, and again, and again.

And he was going to savor every second of it.

End

What if Shinji's teacher was Dexter Morgan? Title is a reference to the Macdonald Triangle, a defunct behavior analysis tool.

Okay so who got the crossover before the name drop?


	8. Everything Louder Than Everything Else

Shinji Ikari One Shot

Everything Louder Than Everything Else

(Listening to "We Are The Road Crew" by Motorhead is not required for enjoying this fic, but recommended.)

* * *

><p>Shinji Ikari sat on the steps of the train station, waiting for the train that would take him to Tokyo-3, to meet his father, and unbeknownst to him, his destiny.<p>

He really didn't want to see his father again. He was a terrible man and really scary. But what else was he supposed to do? He had been told to go and his teacher and just left him here at the station.

So here he was, rewinding his SDAT again, waiting for the train. It was like his whole life was on a train, just going down the track, stopping at the stations, just going along.

In the first days of steam power, trains were sometimes known as Iron Horses. Shinji would be riding a very different Iron Horse today.

"Oi! Kid!"

Shinji looked up, surprised he had somehow missed the huge black bus that had pulled up in front of the station. Hanging out the door was a profoundly ugly man with long hair and mutton chops, and moles on his face that made him look like a melting candle.

"Ya speak english?"

"Y-yeah." Shinji said, pulling down his ear buds.

"We're trying to get to Kyoto-2, got a gig there tonight. I think we're a bit lost."

"Yeah mister, you're a ways away." Shinji said. "About three hundred miles."

"Well that's not too bad given that we can't read the fuckin' signs." The strange looking man said and hopped down from the bus. He was dressed all in black and wore crocodile skin cowboy boots.

"Tell ya what kid, give ya five thousand bucks to read some road signs. Buy ya a cab back after the show too. Or ya know, could always use another roadie."

Shinji didn't know what a roadie was. He did know five thousand dollars was a whole lot of money, more than he had ever seen. What he did know was that this was his chance to get off the train.

"Sure mister." Shinji said, grabbing his knapsack.

"Good boy, whats your name?" The longhaired man said as they walked back to the bus.

"Shinji, sir. Whats yours?"

"Ian, but everyone calls me Lemmy. Welcome to the road crew, and knock that sir shit off."

**-Several hours later, in Tokyo-3-**

"Captain, what exactly do you mean 'he wasn't there'?"

"What the hell do you think I mean?! He wasn't at the station, he wasn't anywhere around, I even found the conductor and showed him a picture. He said he never got on!"

**-At the same time, outside Kyoto-2-**

The bus screeched to a halt, followed by the two lorries that followed. Lemmy was first out the door with Shinji close behind. They were in a big open field with nothing but dirt roads and some trees.

"Right, all hands, get this shit moving! Curtain up in two hours!"

"Um, what should I do?"

"Ever wired sound before?"

"Uh, no."

"Eh, Dan 'll get you squared away." The strange man said and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Oi, Dan! The navigator's with you!"

Within 15 minutes, a very loud Scotsman was shouting instructions up at Shinji, who was hanging from a scaffold that had only been set up 5 minutes before. He was clamping a speaker into place holding pliers in his mouth and holding on with his legs through the trusses.

As he caught the audio cable that was thrown up to him from the ground 10 meters below, he realized he was having more fun than he had ever had before. He was having the time of his life.

**-Back in Tokyo-3, some time later-**

"Dammit, there is no choice, but Rei in Unit One."

"But Sir she is still injured from…"

"Just do it!"

Rei Ayanami was not having the time of her life. What life she had had anyway. Not much of one having to be the commander's super polite child-surrogate. Oh don't say that, oh don't complain, oh don't let your feelings out, blah blah blah.

As the LCL rose around her, she decided if every moment up until now was not the time to let it out, then this must be the goddamn time.

"Rei, the angel is already in the city, but we had time to get the armory buildings ready. What do you want going up?"

"Guns, lots and lots of guns."

**-Outside Kyoto-2-**

"Alright everyone, I want you all to know, this wouldn't been possible without our newest roadie!" Lemmy said after the band had finished their first set. "Now I want to introduce him to ya, we just picked him up today. Come on out here boy!"

Lemmy waved Shinji onto the stage. He was covered in dirt and grease, and his button up had torn some time ago. What was left was a bandage wrapped around his arm, and he wore a black Motorhead t-shirt someone had snatched from the merch booth. They figured if the kid took a fall from the scaffold and got back up he rated a damn t-shirt. A bandaid on his head was holding the gash closed.

"Alright, this here is Shinji, been bustin' his ass all day so you assholes could see a rock'n'roll show. Whaddya got to say to that?!"

Whoops and screams and then the crowd began to chant.

"SHINJI! SHINJI! SHINJI!"

"Hey kid…" Lemmy said, mouth away from the high mic. "Ya ever do somethin' both really cool and really stupid?"

"Like taking a job reading road signs?"

"No, was thinking more like this, ya little shit." The man said and shoved the boy off stage into the crowd who hoisted him over their heads. Once he got over the terror, the boy threw one hand up with his middle and ring fingers tucked and the rest straight out.

"Right, Ein, Zwei, Drei…"

_Another town another place,  
>Another girl, another face,<br>Another truce, another race,_

Unit One sprang up right below the third angel, and Rei swung a vicious uppercut and sent the green monster reeling. As the angel picked itself off the ground, Unit one was plunging its hands straight through the armory building hatches on both sides of the eva.

_I'm eating junk, feeling bad,  
>Another night, I'm going mad,<br>My woman's leaving, I feel sad,_

The angel raised its claws to dispose of the human toy, only to be confronted by the wonders of human warfare…

Unit one ripped its arms from the armory towers, a 440mm gatling gun auto-clamped to each arm. Rei raised both to the angel as 12 barrels spun up.

Just for a moment, the third angel had some conception of the thinking mind of these tiny, pathetic Lilim. In that small moment, the angel Sachiel knew pants shitting terror. It was only aware of this sensation for such a short time, not even long enough to consider the existence of trousers or excrement, because by the next moment, its body was being turned into so many chunks of gore as geysers of blood covered the city.

_But I just love the life I lead,  
>Another beer is what I need,<br>Another gig my ears bleed,  
>We Are The Road Crew<em>

Maya Ibuki was retching under her console. Not from the barbarism of the battle, she grew up in the 90's and 00's and was as desensitized as anybody. It was from watching Rei, covered in bandages and blood, screaming seemingly straight at those watching the monitor.

"AHAHAHA, MORE DAKKA!"

High above the bridge, the vice commander cleared his throat.

"So Gendo, should I report the boy's disappearance to the authorities?"

The commander shrugged. "He'll turn up."

_Another town I've left behind,  
>Another drink completely blind,<br>Another hotel I can't find,_

When the crowd finally dropped Shinji he was in the pit. Surrounded by the jumping and flailing crowd, the smell of thin alcohol and marijuana in the air, the pain as blows landed from all directions at once.

It should have been terrifying. This was like some cultures' definitions of hell. Sitting at that train station in Sendai, he would have done anything to get away from this.

Now he just swung a couple elbows to make some room.

_Another backstage pass for you,  
>Another tube of super glue,<br>Another border to get through,_

"Hey, you're that guy, the roadie! Shinji!" Said the girl with the long auburn air. She was wearing a skirt that barely covered her ass and a little black leather vest with nothing under it that was straining to keep her chest in.

"U-uh yeah."

"Wanna ball?"

"What?" He yelled over the crowd and the music.

"Come on!" Mari said, grabbing him by the wrist.

_I'm driving like a maniac,  
>Driving my way to hell and back,<br>Another room a case to pack,_

"Hey what are you doing?!" He said as she pushed him up against the tree, off away from the crowd. The music was so loud he could steel feel it rattling his spine against the trunk.

"Thankin' ya for making sure I got to see my favorite band." She said and pulled open his belt, then his fly as she sunk to her knees.

"Oh… okay." Shinji said as he slumped against the tree. This roadie thing wasn't too bad, he could get used to this.

_We Are The Road Crew_

_Another hotel we can burn,  
>Another screw, another turn,<br>Another Europe map to learn,_

Hours later, Shinji stumbled back into the space between the bus and trucks that made up backstage. After his little adventure in the woods, he had made it back to the stage just in time to start moving stuff around for the next set. Now, after three encores, the show was finally over and he was exhausted.

"Boy!"

And there he was, like a vision from heaven, the man who was responsible for all of it, with a girl under each arm neither of whom could be more than a few years older than Shinji.

"Some girl used your pass and got back here, said she's your woman or something." He said and climbed onto the bus with the squealing girls in tow. Shinji reached down and found the lanyard with his badge indeed gone. Nobody had questioned him coming back, everyone had seen his face. He was either The Navigator or "the local".

_Another truckstop on the way,  
>Another game I learn to play,<br>Another word I learn to say,_

Dodging swinging scaffold and coils of wire as the stage was taken down, Shinji eventually found the crew bus. As he approached Dan, the Scotsman who had put him in the rigging earlier, was walking out.

"Oi, good show out'der." He said and pushed a red plastic up into Shinji's hand. "Caught yourself a good'un too. She's in ya bunk, third one on the left."

"Uh thanks!" Shinji said and waved as the crew boss walked away. He looked down and sniffed the drink. Fizz popped into his nose like soda, but there was a boozy smell to it too. He stepped onto the bus and saw the girl in his bunk, wearing nothing but that long dark hair and the triangle of metal studs across her torso. Shinji threw back the drink, tossed the cup aside and started pulling off his shirt.

_Another bloody customs post,  
>Another fucking foreign coast,<br>Another set of scars to boast,_

Hundreds of miles apart, Shinji Ikari and Rei Ayanami shared a sensation. Afterglow, that warm, fuzzy sensation that follows ecstasy. Shinji in the cramped little bunk, that girl with the crazy animal eyes on top of him, and Rei basking in the heat of the spotlights, lying on a pile of gigantic shell casings still warm to the touch, amid of a sea of angel blood.

In that moment, they shared a thought too.

"This is fucking awesome."

_We Are The Road Crew_

End

* * *

><p>You may be saying having Lemmy show up in an eva fic is ridiculous. Well, Lemmy can show up in whatever fic he damn wants, Lemmy rules.<p>

For those of you going WTF at all this, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister is the bassist and front man of the legendary rock and roll band Motorhead (properly rendered with several umlauts I am too lazy to find the keystroke for). He will be turning 70 this year and rocks harder than people a quarter of his age can even dream of. Also unlike most old rock stars, he is still getting up there and killing it. He is also known as God.

"We Are The Road Crew" is a song from Motorhead's album Ace of Spades. The album itself is considered definitive of the metal genre in general, and early thrash metal in particular, though Motorhead has always just called their music rock'n'roll. The song chronicles the life of a Roadie, which describes people who do all the jobs on a concert tour but perform, often at the same time.

Written as a small tribute to my brother in law. He fought in Afghanistan. His head got messed up really bad from an IED, he wasn't even on a mission at the time. So he gets back, has all sorts of PTSD shit going on, and his injuries prevented him from doing what he had trained in the army to do. Now he had a wife and family, no job, and problems to make Shinji Ikari blush.

So he gets on with wounded warrior project, and gets selected as one of two roadies for a concert tour. So turns out he has a gift for camera work and got hired on permanently for the production company. He can support his family, do fulfilling work, and he is handling his PTSD, all because he got a gig as a goddamn roadie.

I am not sure who is appreciated less, the soldiers or the roadies. They both deserve way more respect than they get.


	9. An Appreciation For Tradition

Shinji Ikari One Shot

An Appreciation For Tradition

* * *

><p>"Shinji, that was the mailman, go see what there is, would you?"<p>

"Hai Sensei." Shinji said. It was maybe the third words they had exchanged that day. It was not that they had a bad relationship; they just didn't have a relationship at all. Shinji was left to do his school work and rarely needed to ask for help.

It had been this way since father left him here years ago. At fourteen, Shinji had been his teacher's roommate and sometimes pupil, but that was it.

As Shinji walked out to the mailbox, he thought how today felt special. He didn't know why, it was just another September day. The weather was okay, but nothing to talk about. Shinji just had a feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe it would be in the mail.

As he sorted through the junk though, there was nothing. Some bills, some ads, a couple magazines, that was it.

Shinji shrugged and took the mail inside to his teacher, tucking one of the magazines under his arm. No need for Sensei to see that.

In a few minutes, Shinji had forgotten the odd feeling as was thinking about his school work and his next big paper. Sensei had been bugging him to start on college applications. He knew he was ahead, but applying for university already? No thank you Shinji thought, he had time.

A week later, there was knock on the door.

"Shinji, could you get that?"

"In the bathroom Sensei!" The boy yelled across the house.

"Oh very well." The scrawny schoolmaster said and slipped on his house slippers. He was not an impressive sight when he answered the door in his loose trousers and raggedity pullover. He was not an old man, he had gone to school with Gendo Ikari and had been roped into watching his son after not speaking to the man for years, but hunched over in his loose, moth eaten clothes, he looked old.

"Ah, um, hello, can I help you?" He said as he opened the door.

"Good day to you Sir, would this be the residence of Ikari Shinji?"

"Uh, yes, Shinji lives with me, may I ask what this is about? Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"Not at all Sir. You see I was a good friend and… associate, of his late mother. She requested that, should nothing occur on a given day, that I should call upon her son after her death, in order to see to it that he receive a proper education. Is Mr. Ikari home?" The man asked.

He looked old, thought the teacher, with deep lines carving his granite face and short grey hair far back on is skull. He was tall and stood proud with his back straight and his chest out. His dark blue suit fit well and he wore a diamond pin in his tie.

"Does, um, NERV know you are here? I was told to…"

"Sir, is Ikari Shinji home? I need to speak with him."

"I am sorry, I am a teacher, and thus unaccustomed to being interrupted. As I was saying, I was told to not allow any visitors who had not been approved by NERV, so I am afraid you need to provide proof of permission to be here, or leave. What did you say your name was?"

WHAM

Shinji was zipping up, having tucked his magazine under his arm, when he heard the loud slam from the front of the house. As he peeked out of the bathroom door, he saw the old man in the suit at the end of the hall.

"Uh, hello?"

"You must be young master Shinji."

"Um, I'm Shinji, yeah. Who are you, what was that sound?"

"My name is… you can call me Ryu. I am sorta your uncle. Before she died, your mother left instructions for me to see to your education should nothing happen after a certain date."

"Um, okay. Where is sensei?"

"Did you know your mother well Shinji?"

"N-no, not really. I mean I remember she was nice, and pretty, and y'know a good mom before… well, before what happened."

"She was a beautiful women, as you say, and always very kind to me and my family. I would like if you would come with me, so I can tell you more about your mother."

"What about Sensei, where is he?"

"He was tired, decided to take a nap. He was exhausted to the point he forgot to show respect to community leaders." Ryu said, patting Shinji on the back and leading him out the door by the shoulder.

"Your mother wanted you to become a pillar of the community, you know. She was a very wise woman."

Gendo Ikari stood amongst the monoliths of SEELE, pinching the bridge of his nose as the old men bickered.

"No sign of the first messenger, none at all!"

"Perhaps we just do not know how to detect them?"

"If they were so hidden, then it would have completed its task and we wouldn't be here!"

"Ahem." Gendo Ikari cleared his throat loudly and the monoliths went silent. "Have we considered that our calculations may have been incorrect? Were there not other possible dates for the arrival of the third?"

There were murmurs among the committee.

"Dr. Ikari, when she still lived, suggested there may be other possibilities."

Gendo was expressionless, inwardly telling himself over and over to not call these fools what they were. Several minutes later, once the old men were finished and the holograms faded away, his vice-commander and old teacher, Fuyutsuki was there.

"Gendo, we have a little bit of a problem."

"Professor, when Yui first proposed Project E, you called it a little side project. What's going on?"

"Your son has been kidnapped."

"Oh for chrissakes, what do we know?"

"That's the other thing. An old business associate of Yui was seen in the area."

Gendo took off his glasses and put them down on his desk as he stepped around the black stone edifice. As he sat down and reached for the bottom drawer, Kozo spoke again.

"You have also received a letter." The old man said and placed a yellowed old envelope, the size of postcard, on Gendo's desk.

Gendo took out the bottle and a tumbler and poured himself a glass before addressing the envelope. It looked old, but the stamp and the post mark was new. It was addressed to him personally, and had been forwarded from his old address. He had sold the house once the boy left. He recognized the sharp strokes of the kanji.

Gendo sighed as he slit the end of the envelope. "Recognize the handwriting professor?"

"I only graded five dozen of her papers Gendo." Kozo said. Granted most students typed, but the good lord help anyone who assigned her a prompt she felt did not challenge her intellect or asked a lazy question. She would submit assignments in calligraphy to express her displeasure

Gendo slid the letter from the envelope and unfolded the paper. The stationary was branded across the top:

The Ikari Beneficent Foundation

Ikari Yui

President, CEO

And was helpfully dated.

"Assuming it is not a fake…" Gendo said. "She wrote this the day before the accident."

He began to read the letter, more of note really in its brevity. After just a few seconds, he slammed it down on the desk then emptied the glass in one gulp. Kozo picked up the note as Gendo refilled his glass.

_Dear Rokubungi Gendo_

_If you are reading this, the prediction regarding the coming of our friends has proven false. Or rather, the committee's predication has proven false and mine correct. Given your total inadequacy as a father, and I would like to take this opportunity to point this out, as a man, I can only assume you have sent my son off to some grass eating private tutor._

_I am confident that by this time, any child of mine has surely finished his secondary education. In order to better prepare him for what is to come, or just to succeed in life if the messengers never come, I have made preparations for his continuing education. By the time you read this, Uncle Ryu, whom I am sure you remember, has collected him._

_Should my son's services still be required, as per the instructions I have left, he should be adequately prepared for anything that will come if my predication proves correct. If what is to come never does, he will be more than prepared to take up the family business._

_Please show the world you have some semblance of manhood left by leaving my son to his inheritance._

_Not at all, in any way, yours,_

_Ikari Yui_

_P.S. say hello to Professor Fuyutsuki for me if he yet lives. I hope his children found a nice retirement home for him, as he was already slipping at the time of this writing._

_P.P.S. Only joking, I know you are reading this Kozo, hope you are well._

"Well…" Fuyutsuki said, folding up the letter. "It appears he is in good hands at least."

The look he got in reply from Gendo gave a silent, but abundantly clear message.

"Right, ahem, orders, commander Ikari?"

"Find him. Put Katsuragi on it, not like she has anything better to do for the next three years anyway."

* * *

><p>Three years later, on a nice autumn day…<p>

Shinji sat in his room with the screen open to the outside, looking out into the woods. He had a small desk across his lap with a sketchbook and a pencil in his hand. He had been trying to come up with something good all morning, but nothing was coming to him. Screw it, go take a walk, get the brain going. That will help.

"I'm heading into town, uncle! Need anything?"

"Get some good pork. We are making katsu tonight, remember?"

"Yeah, uncle, I'll get it."

Shinji closed his sketchbook and pushed the desk away. As he stood up, he shrugged off the navy blue yukata that sat on his shoulders and grabbed a shirt. Just because Uncle Ryu liked to walk around town like a tourist didn't mean he did.

They had come here, each summer, for a few weeks. A lot of the local organizations' top guys did. It was far enough away from the city that nobody was gonna bother ya, and close enough to get back if anything serious happened.

Shinji liked it, but not as much as uncle Ryu did. It wasn't so much a town as a really big inn with a bunch of private cabins. As such, _some_ people took this as permission to walk around in yukatas and sandals all day. Shinji thought how he at least had the decency to put on slacks and a button up.

He ran his fingers through his short dark hair to get it slicked back where it belonged and was ready to head out the door when he saw the man in black standing in the woods.

Black uniform, black armor, black mask, black gun…

Black gun

Gun

**Fuck**

He dove to the floor and half crawled half ran to get behind something thicker than a paper screen.

"Uncle! It's the cops, the army, I dunno, fuck!" He screamed. He saw the man who he called uncle for just a moment, wearing that stupid yukata, his bare fleet sliding along the hardwood floor.

He had taught Shinji how to be a man, how to earn and keep respect, and how to make sure they show it to you. He had taught him how the law only meant what you let it mean, and how ultimately, it was them who had to look after the people. They were there in '95, when the bureaucrats were still wringin' their hands. They were the heirs of the samurai, they served the people.

Shinji saw the man who had taught him that even though they did bad stuff, they did in a way that was controlled. If they weren't there, it would still be done, but there would be chaos, and all sorts of people would get hurt. Ryu had taught him that there was always chaos, but if you guided it, harnessed it, everyone could come out better in the long run.

Shinji saw the pistol in his teacher's hand. For the briefest of moments he saw the look on the old man's face, and in the tiniest flash of thought realized that is the look a father gives his son.

Shinji saw the bullets tear into his flesh and rip the robe from his body. He saw the beautiful, intricate, colorful tattoos that covered his aged skin, be covered by the flat red of blood.

Shinji saw the man who taught him what it was to be an Ikari, heir to the most feared name in the Yakuza, die.

He saw the life leave his eyes as he ran across the hall to him. He saw the moment when his four fingers let go of the gun, as the men in black grabbed Shinji and pulled him away.

He screamed for Ryu as they dragged him out of the house, screamed until his throat stung and the tears overtook him.

They weren't going to kill him, he realized. They wanted him alive for something.

Didn't fucking matter. They were going to die. Every one of them. He was going to cut their dicks off with a fucking chisel before he put a bullet in their head after they begged for death. Each and every one of these pieces of shit was going to apologize in exchange for the sweet embrace of death once Shinji was done with them.

And when he found the one responsible for this shit, the big boss who ordered it, when he was done with _him_, the afterlife would live in fear of the one who could make a man suffer so.

* * *

><p>"Captain, report."<p>

"Yes Vice-Commander." Misato Katsuragi said, holding the headset microphone close to her mouth. She was inside the van they had set up as a command center, and was face to face with her boss via the screen in front of her.

"The rescue was a success, however the kidnapper had a weapon and we had to neutralize him. Dead on the scene sir."

"That's fine Captain, how is Shinji?"

"The commander's son is unharmed sir, but for a couple bumps and bruises during extraction. He is fine, well physically at least."

"What do you mean by that Captain?"

"Well Sir, are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome?"

* * *

><p>Shinji sat in the stiff metal chair at the metal table, in the little cinderblock room with one door, a camera in the corner, and a two-way mirror across from him. His hands were cuffed to a ring on the table in front of him.<p>

His knuckles were bloody and his hair had fallen down. Looking in the mirror, he thought it kind of looked like the bowl cut he used to keep it in before… before he met Ryu.

"Oi!" He yelled at the mirror. "I want my fucking lawyer!"

Silence.

"Could I at least get some coffee, tea? Even a fuckin' smoke? Come on dontcha' have to give me water or something…"

Shinji was drumming his fingers on the metal table when the door finally opened. He had expected the lawyer, or maybe a cop or something. He did not expect a leggy brunette in a short black dress and red leather jacket. She was carrying a paper cup of coffee in each hand and a folder tucked under her arm. She set the cups and the folder down on the table then pulled a cuff key out from her jacket pocket.

"My name is Captain Misato Katsuragi, I am with UN NERV. Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah, kinda."

"If I take those off, can we be civil?"

"Am I under arrest?"

"Well no." Misato said and set the cups down on the table. "You are not under arrest, you never were. You were only restrained because you broke a man's arm, shattered another's knee cap, and we don't know if a third will ever be able to eat solid food again. They were afraid that was all."

Misato reached over the table and uncuffed the boy, then slid a cup of coffee over to him. She settled down and opened the folder.

"Alright, so I can go?"

"What?"

"I ain't under arrest, so I can go, right?" Shinji said, rising from the chair with his hands still on the table.

"I think you might be interested in what I have to say, not everything is as you may have been told." Misato said, waving for him to sit back down.

Shinji sunk back into his chair. "I'm listening."

* * *

><p>"Sir, he believes his kidnappers were business partners of his late mother. It sounds like they convinced him she was a major figure in organized crime and they were teaching him to take up her position. I told him what really happened, how he was taken, but he is refusing to believe it. Now I have seen this sort of thing before, it's a coping mechanism, but…"<p>

"Have you developed a rapport with him?"

"Yes sir."

"Captain, is this frequency secure?"

"Scrambled and blocked out."

"Captain, what I am about to tell you is highly classified, but given that you have dialogue with him, I believe it is best that you continue to be his point of contact. What do you know of Dr. Yui Ikari, the commander's late wife?"

"Wow, um, before my time, but head of the eva project, pretty much pioneered most of the science herself, definitely not some yakuza princess."

"About that…"

"He's right, isn't he?"

"It would appear so, yes."

"Oooookay, so what do we do now?"

"When the angels come, captain, we will need him. We have been meticulous to keep organized crime out of Tokyo-3, so we can hope that if allowed to live a normal life here, he will readjust."

* * *

><p>-Several weeks later-<p>

"Stand, Bow, Sit!"

"Thank you Ms. Horaki. Welcome back everyone, I hope your summer vacations were pleasant. We have a new student joining our class since last year, please introduce yourself Mr. Ikari."

There was whispering and murmurs as the boy stood up and… well he didn't really walk, so much as strut. He wasn't big, or particularly tall. His dark hair was brushed straight back and his uniform jacket sat across his shoulders, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"So yeah, my name is Ikari Shinji, I actually finished high school a few years ago with a private teacher, but I guess that didn't count or some shit. Don't start none if you don't want none, and we will be alright. Oh and uh, whose in the kendo club?"

end

* * *

><p>I am trying to find a good way to start a story and this was one of my better tries so far. The requirement was that Shinji have a deep, almost illogical, love of Japanese culture and "the old ways", and a nationalist worldview. Additionally, the ambiguity of Yui Ikari's character is always fun to play with, so I figured why not make her a major figure in the Yakuza.<p>

If any of you have better ideas, PM me.


	10. Its Showtime

Shinji Ikari One Shot

Showtime

* * *

><p>"I don't want to be alone, I'm don't wanna die. I'm alone and I'm gonna die." Shinji muttered, head held between his hands<p>

"I am the Shinji Ikari that…" The younger version of himself began to say again, until there was another voice.

"Oh hey sorry about that kid, go find somewhere else to sit. Tell you what, I think there was some guy giving out free candy in the other car, now get outta here, stop botherin' me… Hey kid, you alright?"

Shinji looked up and found his younger self gone. In the apparition's place was a very dirty looking man. His skin was chalky gray and his unkept hair looked green it was so dirty. His eyes were all yellow, like the kind of drunk who was only sober once a week, and his disgusting teeth were nearly the same color, along with his cracked and chewed fingernails. All of it was somehow tied together by the ill fitting suit with vertical black and white prison stripes.

"Hey, can you hear me in there, yoohoo?" The man said, tapping Shinji on the head. "You okay?"

"Uh, not really… I don't think so. Who are you?"

"Just a guy riding the train. Ya look like somethin's eatin ya, and I don't mean in the good way, know what I mean!" The man said and cackled in laughter at his own joke, slapping Shinji on the shoulder. Shinji didn't get it. "I uh, make it my business to help people with their problems, so why don't you tell me whats on your mind?"

Oh great, a therapist, Shinji thought. Oh what was the harm, it was all some near-death dream anyway.

"I live with my boss, who I have feelings for, and this girl who I also like, but my boss is a drunken slob and the girl hates me. My father barely acknowledges I exist, my mom is dead, and the only other girl I talk to on a regular basis has all the personality of a dead fish. Everyone treats me like shit and then expects me to go out in the eva and save everyone. And now an angel ate me and I am going to die here, cold and alone, talking to myself."

"Wow, that's rough, hey I think I can help you out though…"

"And that's not the half of it! Misato keeps teasing me, Asuka calls me weak and when I do better than her she just gets mad! Nobody will tell me what is really going on! I don't even know if I want to save everyone, I don't even know why I am fighting! Not like I have questions about it, I just don't know why at all! They just tell me what to do!"

"Yeah kid, that's pretty jacked, now I can help, all you gotta do is…"

"Help?! That's what it takes, I have to die and have some weirdo in a dream ask to get somebody to help me! Yeah I want help! I want to know what the hell is going on, I want to make dad tell me why he did what he did! I want to make Asuka treat me like a fucking human being! I want Rei to act like a real person and not a robot and I want to know why the hell I keep having wet dreams about albino guys!" Shinji screamed. He was up now, stomping around the train car, swinging his arms about as he spoke.

"Wooooooooah Tee-Em-Eye! But tell ya what, I can get you all that and more."

"I am going to die in a few minutes, what the hell is it going to help?!"

"Well I mean, can start by getting you out of here, ya know. Not gonna lie, I come out of this deal good only as long as you do, so if you want my help, kinda want to hurry this up. All you gotta do is say a few magic words and we can get to work, comprende?"

"O-kay?" Shinji said. The dirty man pulled a coffee stained business card out of pocket and held it out for Shinji. The boy took it in both hands with a bow, just like they taught in school.

"Whats all this?"

"Just read it kid, and we'll be on our way. You and me against the world." The man said, wrapping his arm around Shinji's shoulder. "Gonna have all sorts of fun. It will be like some real father and son shit, or that creepy old uncle ya drink with, whatever ya like, just read it."

Shinji held up the card to see it more clearly in the twilight.

"Though I know I should be wary, still I venture someplace scary…"

He felt the train start to slow, and heard the bell ring as the doors opened.

"This is our stop kid, just say the word and we can get off." The man in the striped suit said, swinging his arm along the horizon

"Ghostly hauntings I turn loose…"

The light was getting brighter now, so bright the train was beginning to fade away.

* * *

><p>Shinji awoke with a shock in the cockpit of the evangelion. There was still only darkness. Had it all been a dream?<p>

He looked down and found he was still holding the dirty business card in his hands. He looked up and saw the battery life displayed on the plug wall, less than a minute of life support left. Oh why not? If it was a dream, might as well keep going.

"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice."

The grating laughter filled the plug as the darkness and displays was replaced by writhing snakes of black and white, green tongues lolling out of blue lips.

"HehehehahahaAHAHAHAHAHA… Its SHOWTIME!"

* * *

><p>Unit Zero and Two were in place ready to take down the angel's AT field before the N2 strike began, the bombers gathered overhead, when it all happened.<p>

Suddenly the psychedelic patterns across the angel's spherical shadow began to turn and warp, its black "body" buzzing and popping. Screeching like nails on a chalkboard filled the air as the sphere twisted in on itself into a knot. The ties of the knot began to move and flow as the black and white lines organized themselves. Soon mouths with fleshy lips and green and black tongues emerged to consume themselves as the shadow began to sink towards the body.

Everyone watching could the struggle between the force pulling the shadow down and something within the shadow trying to rise. The ropes of the knot released their own bodies from their jaws and reached out as fetid worms, biting into the body of the angel.

The scream shook the city, the evangelions, and even the airframes above. Even in the command bridge, far down in the geofront, the sound caused instant migraines.

As the worms consumed the angel's body, the knot of the shadow pulled tighter and tighter. Eventually there was a single body from which many worms came. Then the beasts began to consume each other, until only a single gigantic one remained. The worm dwarfed the surrounding buildings for the moments of its existence until its flesh split and began to melt away.

Finally, all that was left a lake of gore, a noxious green miasma, and Evangelion Unit One, sporting a very art deco new pain scheme of black and white hazard stripes. The giant threw back its head, fists raised to the sky, and roared its victory before finally shutting down.

* * *

><p>"Well Doctor, what happened?"<p>

"It ate the angel."

"Unit One… ate the angel?"

"Yep."

"How do you believe this occurred, could the pilots state have had something to do with it?"

Ritsuko Akagi shrugged and put another cigarette in her mouth. "No idea."

"Is there a danger of infection of some kind?"

"I dunno." She said with a shrug. "Looks like its core is finally working though. Besides that, new paint job and we can't get the smell of blood off it, that's all I got. Give me a few weeks, I might be able to come up with something better, but I've been awake for like twenty eight hours at this point, so I am just impressed I can still talk if I am to be honest."

"I… see. What is the condition of the pilot?"

"Well he looks like someone who has not eaten or slept in a day or so, but basically okay. Well okay, that is his condition, he LOOKS like death not so warmed over but maybe that's just the LCL."

"Riiiight…" Gendo said, adjusting his glasses. The good doctor was certainly acting strangely, but perhaps it was just lack of sleep. Either way he knew better than to ask for a quickie at this point. "And where is the pilot now?"

"Right outside."

"Good, good. You go get some rest, send him in on your way out if you please."

Ritsuko Akagi yawned as she left the room and promptly collapsed asleep on one of the Spartan benches in the hallway.

"See what I mean, driving the sleepwalkers is easy. Now remember, nobody else can see me so just act like I'm not here." Shinji's new "uncle" explained as they stepped into Gendo Ikari's office. Shinji opened the door, BJ just walked through the wall.

"Pilot."

"Father." Shinji said. He was more bored with the man now than anything. Oji-sama had explained a lot about what kind of man his father was and it had dispelled much of the fear he had held before.

Beetlejuice had produced a screwdriver from somewhere and was walking around behind Gendo's desk.

"I am concerned over what occurred once you were… captured by the angel and what changes may have been made to your evangelion. If you display any signs of infection, I will have you terminated immediately, withooooooooh!-" Gendo yelped as his chair collapsed under him, sending him to the floor.

Shinji started to giggle but managed to suppress it by the time Gendo looked at him over his desk.

"You…"

"What?" Shinji said, hands raised defensively. "You aren't going to accuse me of making your chair break with _angelic powers_ are you?"

Shinji wiggled his fingers in the air and made a 'wwoooooOOOooo' ghost sound.

"OUT!"

Shinji stuffed his hands in his pockets and didn't stop laughing after he left the creepy office until he was on the elevator to the surface.

"Alright Oji-sama, what else can you do?"

"What can't I do? I'm the ghost with the most, kid. Y'know, s'long as you don't mind like a second pair of eyes along for the ride, could look into that girl problem you were talking about. And I won't tell the wife if you don't."

Shinji grinned, imagining the possibilities then had an odd thought. "Wait, Oji-sama, you're married?"

"Yeah…. Why you lookin' at me all weird?"

"I dunno, I just thought… you didn't seem the kind, that's all."

"Well excuse me! I have a beautiful wife and a couple of kids I'll have you know."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"What's their names?"

"Lydia, and I got Junior and Barbara at home, look." The old man said, pulling a picture from his wallet and showing it to Shinji. It showed a pretty brunette in a red cloak with two small and profoundly creepy children dressed in all black at her feet. A full quarter of the picture was obscured by a finger.

"Let me guess, you took the picture?"

"Yeah, how can ya tell?"

"Just a guess."

"So, hows about a little lesson in getting' the ladies from yer uncle BJ? Who we going to go see? Or better yet, who we gonna go see first?"

"Oh, first has got to be…."

* * *

><p>God I loved the Beetlejuice cartoon growing up. I didn't see the movie till years later of course, but I remember laughing so hard I could barely breath. This is obviously based more in the cartoon.<p>

Most stupid one of these I have done so far? Most definitely. I will freely admit I was giggling writing it though. Things like this help me break writer's block.

I bet y'all saw the title and thought it was gonna be a Big O crossover too.

What did you think, BJ?

_Nice fucking fan-fic! HONK HONK_


	11. Science Fiction Double Feature: Part One

_Shinji Ikari One Shot_

_Science Fiction Double feature_

_I wouldn't call this crack… I would call this cocaine snorted directly off a transvestite's ass._

_If you have not seen the Rocky Horror Picture show… what are you doing with your life, I mean seriously? _

_ If you have had the… privilege… of seeing it surrounded by other people… what are you doing with your life, I mean seriously? Either way, knowledge of the source material is very much required for this one._

* * *

><p><em>Part 1: In which a play is put on…<em>

"Well, I suppose you are all curious as to why I called you here today."

"Not really Commander Ikari, its Monday morning, we always have a meeting on Monday morning."

"That is the operations meeting Major Katsuragi, which has been pushed back to Tuesday this week. No, this morning I would like to discuss some additional duties that will be shared amongst NERV staff. You see there has been quite the exodus of civil employees. This is unsurprising given the danger in our work. However lights still need to turn on, toilets need to flush, and, and this is what I would like to discuss today, children need to be taught. While I am more than happy to have the enlisted personal handle the hard labor, I feel that the instruction of children should land squarely on the shoulders of the senior staff… Why are you all looking at me like that?"

"Sir, I can't think of anybody less qualified to teach children than us."

"Major, everyone at this table is college educated, Dr. Akagi and Professor Fuyutsuki both have multiple degrees, and you yourself received quite high marks. We will be fine to fill in for the departed staff, its not like we will be taking over all teaching duties."

"Well, if you say so Sir, I am sure we can handle subbing for a class now and then, not like we will need to…"

"The first order of business is of course the school play this year. I delegate that to you Professor."

"Thank you commander. Dr. Akagi, Major Katsuragi, I delegate this to you, let me know if you require any assistance."

* * *

><p><em>6 Weeks later<em>

Misato peaked out from the wings as the audience began to file in. It was mostly parents, though a good deal of NERV personnel had shown up as well. She wasn't sure if they came out of interest or sympathy. It was a big deal when the commander of NERV agreed to help out with a school play. Most of them were inspecting little brown paper bags…

"Rits, we weren't passing out favors in the lobby were we?"

"What? Of course not, imagine the chaos if people started throwing things."

* * *

><p>In the lobby, Ryoji Kaji was passing out bags and "special" playbills.<p>

"One free for everyone, come and get'em! Only way to get the full experience folks."

* * *

><p>Dr. Ritsuko Akagi stepped onto the stage in front of the curtain and the house went quiet.<p>

"Hello everyone, and welcome to Tokyo-3 Secondary's annual school play. We at NERV are very excited to have been part of the education of these children in the fine arts and hope you enjoy watching as much as we have enjoyed preparing and putting this show on for you. So without further ado…" She said and stepped off stage as the curtain went up.

Standing alone in the middle of the stage was a busty girl in a maid's uniform, the high flounced skirt revealing her fish-net glad, long athletic legs in dancing heels. The frilly white headpiece was jauntily cocked to the side and her long violet hair hung straight down to the small of her back, framing her face and bright cherry red lips. Mari had left her glasses off to reduce glare. She was a professional, or the few gasps at her outfit from the audience would have made her laugh. Hands held in together in front of her, she began to sing.

"Oh Michael Rennie was ill the day the earth stood still, but he told us where we stand…"

"ON OUR HEADS!" Shouted several voice from the audience at once. How rude Mari thought, but didn't skip a beat.

"And Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear, Claude Rains was the invisible man!"

"SHIT I MISSED HIM!"

Oh that's how you want to play it? Fine thought Mari. She broke her poised stance and raised open hands to the ceiling, belting out the lyrics with new enthusiasm.

"But something went wrong…"

"FOR WHO?"

"For Fey Ray and King Kong…"

"WHAT HAPPENED?"

"They got caught in a celluloid jam…"

" YEAH SUCKERS!"

"Then at a deadly pace, it came…"

"WHERE?!"

"From outer space!"

"THANK YOU!"

"And this is how the message ran!" Mari said, strutting across the stage as the chorus, glad in black, stepped out from the shadows.

"Science fiction, double feature. Dr. X will build a creature. See Androids fighting…"

"AND SUCKING AND FUCKING ON…"

And so it went. Misato already had a list of suspects for this shit and was heading out to the lobby when she found the kid in the jean jacket vest with a broken leg, clutching his saxophone.

"THE MAN YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE HAS NO FUCKING NECK!"

After the scene at the wedding, the lights had gone dark. When they came back up, none other than Commander Gendo Ikari was sitting in a blush leather chair in the middle of the stage, a large leather bound album in his white gloved hands. As the audience had promised, his collar and ascot did indeed totally obscure his neck beneath his beard.

"I would…"

"YOU WOULD."

Gendo cleared his throat and continued. "If I may…"

"YOU MAY NOT!"

Gendo growled to himself, cursing the bright lights for preventing him from seeing just who was leading that infernal heckling. He of course would not let such a thing prevent him from carrying out his task. He had been quite the thespian in high school, his performance frequently praised as solid as an oak. He was sure that is what they meant when they said wooden. The doctor and the major said this role would be perfect for him.

"To take you…

"WHERE?"

"…On a strange journey."

"HOW STRANGE IS IT? SO STRANGE THEY WROTE A PLAY ABOUT IT!"

"It seems a fairly ordinary night, when Brad Majors…"

"ASSHOLE!"

"and his fiancée Janet Weiss…"

"SLUT!"

"Two, young, normal, healthy kids, left Denton that November night to visit Dr. Everett Scott, Ex-tutor and now friend to both of them. Its true there were dark clouds…"

"PLEASE DESCRIBE YOUR BALLS!"

"Heavy, black, and pendulous." Gendo said, wincing as laughter erupted.

"Hi!" Shinji said with uncharacteristic confidence. He had taken to acting and very much enjoyed the last several weeks for… various reasons. "I'm Brad Majors…"

"ASSHOLE!" Shinji did not even mind those obnoxious members of the audience. He just had to keep himself from laughing.

"… and this is my fiancée Janet Weiss."

"SLUT!" He was less pleased about that particular call.

"I wonder if you could help us. You see our car broke down a few miles up the road. Do you have a phone we might use?"

"CASTLES DON'T HAVE PHONES ASSHOLE!"

"You're wet." Riff Raff, played by Toji Suzuahara said, offering an apparently blood stained handkerchief.

"HEY JANET ARE YOU A SLUT?"

"Yes. Its raining." Rei responded as she took the cloth and began to dab her hair.

"HEY BRAD ARE YOU AN ASSHOLE?"

"Yes." Shinji said, barely managing to conceal his reaction that time. Rei was staying admirably straight faced.

"Yes, I think you had better both come inside."

"WE DON'T CARE WHERE YOU CUM AS LONG AS YOU CLEAN IT UP." Apparently that was a little off color for the audience. It had been far quieter.

"Oh you're too kind…" Rei said, huddled up against her 'fiancee'. "Oh Brad, I'm frightened, what is this place?"

"Oh its probably some hunting lodge for rich weirdos."

"RICH WEIRDOS AREN'T IN SEASON ASSHOLE!"

"Oh."

"This way…" Toji said, beckoning them across the stage, down the 'hall'.

"Are you having a party?"

"You've arrived on a very special night. Its one of the masters' affairs."

"Oh, lucky him." Rei said. On cue, Hikari, in a disheveled maid's uniform with dark circles painted around her eyes, slid down a banister, landing right behind Rei, who jumped with a yelp.

"You're lucky, he's lucky, I'm lucky, we're all lucky!"

"THAT BANISTERS LUCKY!"

As the music kicked in, Toji licked his lips and touched hands with Hikari, slowly sliding together to touch elbows then sliding away as the audience chanted.

"ELBOW SEX, ELBOW SEX!"

"Its astounding, time is fleeting, madness, takes control, but listen closely."

"Not for very much longer!" Hikari manically shouted as Toji spun her with her hand above her head then pulled her very close. Their noses nearly touched as he dipped her.

"I've got to… keep control." He said, swung her upright, and she shoved him away.

"I remember! Doing the time warp! Drinking those moments when the darkness would hit me!"

"And the void would be calling!" Hikari sang as she mimed pulling swinging the door open and the chorus, dressed in ill-fitting tuxedos and bizarre party favors, two-stepped in.

"Lets do the time warp agaaaaaaaaaain!"

As the dancers collapsed on the stage, Shinji and Rei stepped back in, careful to step well past the blocked mark on the floor. All the others had been removed but this was probably the only dangerous stage effect and so it had been left, just in case.

Mari in her gold sequined jacket felt like really collapsing. Tap-dancing in a corset was torture.

"Brad, say something."

"Say, do any of you guys know how to Madison?"

"Brad please, lets just get out of here." Rei said as they stepped back together, feeling for the mark with their heels sliding across the floor.

"For god's sake, keep a grip on yourself Janet."

"It seems so unhealthy here."

"Its just a party, Janet."

"Well, I want to go." She said and they stopped at their mark and turned to one another.

"Well we can't go until I use the phone."

"Well then ask the butler or something."

"Just a moment Janet, we don't want to interfer with their celebration."

"This isn't the junior chamber of commerce Brad."

"They're probably foreigners with ways different than our own. Perhaps they will do some more folk dancing."

"Look, I'm cold, I'm wet…"

"YOU'RE ALWAYS WET, SLUT!"

"and I am just plain scared!" Rei said, stamping one foot.

Shinji took Rei by the arms as the "elevator", really just a rope swing with a cardboard door in front of it began to lower itself.

"I'm here, there is nothing to worry about."

The elevator met the stage and Rei screamed with her hands raised to her mouth. She fell into Shinji's arms and he pulled her away as the "door" rose back up to the catwalk.

In six inch platform heels and black lingerie shimmering with sequins, Asuka Langely Soryu threw off her cape and made her stage debut.

"How you do! I… see you met my… faithful handyman. He's just a little brought down, because when yoooou knocked, he thought you were the candyman, didntja freaky?"

Strutting to the edge of the stage, swinging her hips, there were gasps from the crowd. "Don't get strung out, by the way I look, don't judge a book by its cover-er. I'm not much of a man, by the light of day." Asuka ran one hand through her hair and with the other grasping the rubber between her legs shimmied down to touch her very exposed bottom to her heels then back up.

"But by night I'm one hell of a lover-er. I'm just a sweet transvestite, from transssssexual, transylvaniaaaaaa-haha."

Backstage, Misato was pulling on Ritsuko's arm.

"Rits we got a problem!"

"Ssssh, what is it?"

"Eddie broke his leg."

"Oh down in IT? I thought you knew, we passed around the get well card last week."

"No, I mean our Eddie, you know, goes on in like five minutes, sings, dances, plays the sax!"

"Oh shit."

"Oh shit indeed. Who else can play saxophone?"

"Well nobody, I mean you had to tutor him…" Ritsuko said, suddenly staring at Misato.

"What?"

"It would be different…."

"Huh?"

"No, daring! Bold, not seen before, a progressive interpretation of a classic of sexual liberation!"

"Rits what are you… oh no, you aren't suggesting…"

"Come on, don't you have those cut offs in your bag anyway?" Ritsuko grabbed the major by the arm. "Make-up, got another one and make it quick!"

"In just seven days, I can make you a maaaa-a-a-a-a-aaaan!" Asuka finished, holding Kowaru's fist in the air. The strange boy had been oddly enthusiastic to appear in a gold speedo and with no other volunteers had been cast as Rocky. One the cue of the motorcycle sounds, they both moved away as the door of the "lab" opened with dry ice fog bellowing out.

"EDDIE!" Mari squealed, especially loudly in surprise as Misato rode the prop out. Her hair was pulled back and she was wearing her cut offs, a little t-shirt borrowed from a middle school girl, sunglasses, and not much else. The saxophone was slung across her back.

"Whatever happened to a Saturday night? When you dressed up good and you felt all right?" She sang, dismounting and grabbing Mari around the waist.

"It don't seem the same since cosmic light came into my life, I thought I was divine! I used to go for a ride with a chick who'd go, and listen to the music on the stereo. A saxophone was playin' on a rock and roll show, you climbed in the back seat, you know you had a real good ti-ime!"

"Hot patootie, bless my soul-"

"SEX DRUGS AND ROCK N' ROLL!" The audience screamed, drowning out the players.

"Well this is intermission folks, um, no need to rush, please don't push…" Ritsuko said, her enthusiasm waning as parents rushed for the doors. She sighed as the curtain dropped. Perhaps this had been a little too avant-garde for the 8th grade play.

* * *

><p>End of Part 1<p>

This may or may not get a part 2. I was getting weird looks as I laughed maniacally over this. I initially considered doing it as a straight up NGE characters living those events, but this seemed more fun.

The, ahem, playbill below…

**Tokyo-3 Secondary Theater Company**

With the assistance of **UN NERV**

Presents a classic of 20th Century Western Musical Theater

**The Rocky Horror Show**

Cast…

Brad= Shinji Ikari

Janet= Rei Ayanami

Dr. Frank N. Furter= Asuka Langely Soryu

Riff Raff=Toji Suzuhara

Magenta= Hikari Horaki

Columbia= Mari Illustrious Marikami

Rocky Horror= Kaworu Nagisa

Dr. Everett Scott= Kensuke Aida

Eddie= Misato Katsuragi

The Criminologist= Gendo Ikari


	12. Beneath My Wings

Shinji Ikari One Shot

Underneath my wings

* * *

><p>Lt. Shinji Ikari sat in the darkness of the cockpit. He was clenching and unclenching his hands around the controls, trying to keep them warm. It was this damned synchro system. He couldn't just see a thermometer; he had to <em>feel<em> it, just like the bird. In the cold launch shaft, deep underground with no light, it was freezing. He had been in the LCL filled cockpit, on standby, for hours, ever since the angel had been detected in high orbit.

* * *

><p>"Ikari, do you read me?!"<p>

Shinji was donning his plug suit as quickly as he could when he heard the radio in his helmet going off on the bench.

"Lt. Ikari, come in!"

Shinji cinched the suit up with the tap of a button and quickly pushed the helmet down over his head only to have the radio screaming in his ear.

"LT. IKAR-"

"This is Ikari, what's the alpha's status?" Shinji said as he fixed the seal between his suit and helmet.

"Alpha-six is one-oh-five kilometers up and approaching the Karman line. Currently over the Atlantic. At current trajectory, we predict Alpha-six will reach operational envelope in three hours, somewhere over the western pacific. It will require a sharp change in trajectory at some point to make landing in target zone." The girlish voice in the CIC rattled off. As she spoke, the information was laid out across his helmet's projected HUD.

"Roger that, on the hoof to hanger one. What is unit one's status?"

"Fueling and arming. Be advised, unit one has already been transferred to launch chute oh-oh-three."

Shinji turned on the ball of his foot to make a left instead of heading straight. "Roger that."

His plane was still level on the deck as final preparations were made. It was huge by air-superiority standards, even bigger than the Su-34 it was based on and that was made to be a bomber. The all-digital COFFIN cockpit sat within the fuselage, the port and starboard main cameras forming great yellow eyes at the seam of the hatch and the body. The nose was a like a stiletto dagger and with the golden heat coating looked like the beak of a crane. Along every other leading edge was another heat treatment, this formula having dried bright neon green. The remainder of the craft was dark gunmetal, or so the techs insisted. Shinji, and just about everyone else, said it was purple. The NERV half fig leaf adorned both tails in crimson red.

Shinji quickly settled into the cockpit and closed the hatch. As LCL began to flow in and his suit synced with the primary systems, he began running control checks. The neural connection between pilot and the plane's bio-computer provided a degree of control that just wasn't possible with sticks and levers, but it had its peculiarities. Shinji could tell that fueling was halfway complete by the slight hunger in his stomach. He knew the sensor suite was up and running because his senses felt more acute. He checked the thrust vectoring nozzles by flexing his calves and ankles, and he rustled the feather like flexible wing sections with his fingers.

All of this control came at a price of course, especially when you ride over a quarter million pounds of thrust. The forces involved would crush your blood from one end of your body to the other. This is where the pressurized LCL and plug suit came in, lessening the forces the pilot is subjected to and helping to control the body to get the pilot through what remained.

"Lt. Ikari, alpha-six has changed course and is now on final approach, prepare for launch. Switching to secure communication, please confirm."

"This is Firefox, confirmed. Ready for launch." Shinji said and ignited the twin engines. The sensation as they spun up was like taking off at a run, the heart quickly speeding up.

"Launching in 5…4…3…2…1, GO!"

The magnetic catapult kicked in and flung the aircraft and its pilot nearly thirty five hundred meters to the surface in a second. With the thermonuclear turbines at full as the evangelion fighter broke the surface, the shockwave split trees into splinters. Shinji kept the throttle wide open as he rose to meet the threat.

As the fighter rose through the atmosphere, a vast array of cameras and radar began taking the measure of the angel. All of the data flowed back through the titanic MAGI super computer cluster and to the desk of Lt. Maya Ibuki.

"Commander Ikari, MAGI has visual approximation."

Because of the vast distances during the approach and the insane speeds at which the combatants were traveling, a traditional visual identification would have been possible only within a few milliseconds. What appeared onscreen was a construction from available data.

"Angel appears basically similar in body plan to a large pterosaur, specifically resembling _Quetzalcoatlus_ besides for size obviously. Wingspan is approximately eighty meters. MAGI has designated alpha-six Gaghiel." Within evangelion unit one, code name Firefox, the same model appeared in the corner of the pilot's HUD. The barely visible dot on the horizon gained a little green box around it and the text A6-GAGHIEL beside it. "Target aquired, prepping the Vicar." Shinji said, tapping controls. The Variable Energy Coil Rifle or VECR is the main weapon of the evangelion fighter and is spinal mounted directly below the cockpit and extending all the way back to between the twin engines. The tip of its barrel, located just below the point of the nose, is kept shrouded but for the microseconds it takes to fire the weapon. It is a sophisticated solenoid quench design, constantly improved by software upgrades to improve efficincy and velocity. During preparation, capacitors are charged and one of several ammunition payloads chambered. The evangelion carried plenty of conventional weapons, but the "vicar" as it was called, was the "Locked on, five seconds to contact." Shinji brought the nuclear turbines to one hundred and fifteen percent and corrected for his final approach. The moment the alpha became more than a dot, he pulled the trigger, because if it got any bigger he would be flying past by the time the shell left the barrel. He hoped to zoom past a dead monster turning into so much pink fire. Instead he had just the barest blink of an eye to see the thing tuck its wings and dive. The fucker had dodged. The fucking alpha dodged. Shinji cut power, rolled one hundred and eighty degrees, then pulled back and opened the throttle back up into a split-S. He could see the orange glare from the back of the diving angel pushing itself down impossibly fast with its AT field. Shinji recharged the vicar and lined up another shot. Just as the two reticles crossed his head and lined, just as he got positive tone, the beast suddenly flung its wings back open, braking so hard Shinji had to jerk hard not to smash into it as he zoomed past. No sooner had the lock on tone faded then Shinji hurt the dreaded warning tone. They had figured out early if an angel was focusing its AT field in any direction, it was getting ready to attack there. A system that could detect it and treat iot like radar lock was easy. The angel had lock on the evangelion. Shinji aileron rolled hard to the right, launching flash bang like counter-measures to hopefully confuse the alpha. He felt the searing heat as the beam of burning plasma scorched his wing. Nothing serious, just armor, but it was way too damn close.

Shinji broke Eva-01 Firefox out of the dive and gunned the engines. He nearly pissed himself when the angel broke off West, heading for Tokyo-3. It could have had him, but it thought he was running now, beneath notice.

Hardly.

Shinji slammed the throttle back and forth hard enough to give the damn thing whiplash as he made his high-G turn. With the engines red-lined and less than one thousand feet off the surface of the ocean, he slowly pulled ahead of the alpha.

"Firefox, alpha is less than five-oh-oh clicks outside terminal perimeter, what are you doing?!"

"This one is more maneuverable! I need to get him where he can't dodge!"

"Negative, I repeat, that is a negative! We do not know what will happen if the alpha gets inside the terminal perimeter. Engage at range with the Vee-e-see-ar!"

"No can do control, this ones too smart for that."

"Firefox-" Shinji cut off comms. He needed to concentrate.

As sea turned to land beneath him, he dropped even lower, just a few hundred feet off the ground. With the vicar canon fully charged and all of his convention missiles armed and ready to rock, he turned towards Tokyo-3. He could see the alpha above, a fireball racing across the sky, heading almost straight down towards the city. Just above downtown, their paths would cross. At this rate Shinji would have just flown by before the beast made impact.

Shinji flipped off the AoA and G limiters and switched the G-force compensators to heavy mode. He could feel the weight on his body right away as his soon and the LCL squeezed him tight.

Just on the edge of town, he yanked back hard on the stick and pushed the thrust vectoring nozzles to their dorsal limit. The fighter's nose shot straight up even as it continued forward.

Shinji strained every muscle in his body to stay awake as his blood tried to rush from his head. At the peak of the cobra maneuver, he was looking right at the enemy. If the alpha maneuvered in even the slightest, it would kill itself in the impact and miss its mark. Its only hope to complete its mission and to pass through the ground at this weakest point in the geofront, was to go through the evangelion.

Shinji fired the VECR cannon and every missile he had straight down the beast's throat. As the angel was torn to a pulpy mess, Shinji throttled up again. Normally in a cobra there is enough energy to torque the plane back down, but firing the vicar had pushed him down far enough in that low energy state that his after burners kicking in shattered half the windows in downtown from the pressure wave alone.

Shinji flipped comms back on and wooped in victory.

"Firefox to control, alpha is down. Request permission for tower flyby."

"Control to firefox, permission denied, we don't even have a tower. The commander wants you on the ground in three."

Shinji began the LCL purge as soon as he touched down and popped the cockpit the moment he came to a stop. He stood there, helmet held above his head, howling in victory as crew surrounded the plane. Once a ladder was brought he climbed down into mass of screaming NERV personnel.

"Pilot Ikari!" Came the commander's voice across the tarmac, and all went silent. You did not speak over Commander Ikari nor did you stand in HER way. Everyone snapped their heels together and saluted as she passed. When she reached Shinji, she did not hesitate to embrace him, squeezing him to her body even in her uniform and him still covered in LCL.

"I'm so proud of you. Your father would be so proud of you."

Shinji hugged his mother back and smiled. His father had died in an accident when he was a little boy. "I know mom, I just hope he's watching."

Yui looked over her son's shoulder at the crane like aircraft, still steaming as the air cooled its friction heated skin.

"He is Shinji. He is."

* * *

><p>It was another four hours of debrief before Shinji finally left base and it was well into the next morning when he finally got home. Even so the lights were still on and as Shinji eased in the door, wearing civvies and his leather fighter jock jacket, an ashen haired little boy in one-piece airplane pajamas ran into his arms.<p>

"Daddy!"

Shinji lifted his five-year old son up against his chest. "Hey there little man, aren't you up a little late?"

"Kaworu was having none of going to bed before his daddy got home." The always calm voice of Rei Ikari said, sliding up behind Shinji and hugging him with her cheek resting on his back.

As they put little Kaworu to bed, Shinji kissed his son on the forehead and looked into his eyes. His had inherited his mother's albinism, but thankfully all he had to show for it was those red eyes and grey hair. He could run and play outside just like all the other kids.

Rei took his jacket off and took her time undressing him in the darkness of their room. She, as she so loved to put it, 'expressed the collective gratitude of mankind' to her husband. As Shinji laid back, his wife asleep across his chest, his son gently snoring in the other room, he remembered when he had first become a pilot, nearly a decade ago. When the entire world was just a ball of dust beneath his feet, like that old song.

It wasn't just a ball of dust anymore though. It was where this woman and that child lived. That's why he flew now. Not to stay in the sky, but to come back down.

End

* * *

><p>My ode to all things military aviation. Inspired by Top Gun, Area 88, Macross, Firefox, Ace Combat, and a whole bunch of Tom Clancy. The title and final bit are both references to Mighty Wings by Cheap Trick, which was on the Top Gun soundtrack. Notice the total absence of a danger zone reference.<p>

I want to dedicate this to two people in particular. One is a guy who has been has been helping me out by reviewing since I started doing this a few months ago, Iyaoyas. The other kind is a Youtube personality I have been following for years, Nutnfancy. The latter was a USAF pilot and retired a LtCol. a couple years ago.

For the gear heads like myself:

**Evangelion Unit 01, codename Firefox** (cause it's a Russian built partially thought controlled fighter, get it?)

-Piloted by Lt. Shinji Ikari of the US Navy, seconded to UN NERV.

-Built by a collaboration of the Russian Military Aviation industry and based primarily on a Sukhoi design. Most resembles the Su-27 Flanker family of aircraft.

-Armed with the Vicar coil gun as well as a selection of missiles. Was originally going to have this be more Macross oriented and have the micro missiles and like a Gerwalk mode.

**Evangelion Unit 02, codename Fire Drake**

-Built by a collaboration of western European military aviation companies, including BAE, Messerschmitt, Dassalt, and Saab. Most resembles an earlier design of Saab's, the Draken. Resembles, not identical to and much bigger of course.

-Piloted by none other than Cpt. Asuka Langely Soryu of the Luftwaffe.

-Twin Vicar cannons mounted parallel to the body within the wings and enough hard points to level a small country.

-Not quite as maneuverable at speed as 01, lacking the twin nozzles, but faster and a more finished design. It does retain thrust vectoring.

**Evangelion Unit 00, codename Feathered Serpent**

-Built by Boeing and Lockheed, with internal components a collaboration between the Americans and the Israelis. Most resembles the F-22 Raptor.

-Originally piloted by Lt. Rei Ayanami (retired) of UN NERV, no pilot currently assigned.

-Armament: (CLASSIFIED)

-Operational history: (CLASSIFIED)

-Deployments: (CLASSIFIED)

-Removed from service after (CLASSIFIED) incident, which also prompted the retirement of the pilot.

-Current location: Deep freeze within Geofront, Tokyo-3, Japan.


	13. Nexus

Shinji Ikari One Shot

Nexus

_This references the prior one shot stories, or rather crosses over with all of them. Just a bit of fun for those following along._

* * *

><p>Dreams, that was all they had been. Pathetic attempts to shield himself from the pain of the world. Even as he sat here on this hellish train, listening to his younger self tell him what a loser he was, he kept having them. He even dreamed of being rescued from his own mind, how pathetic was that?<p>

"I am the Shin-"

"No…" A voice that rumbled like cannon fire said. "You are not."

Shinji looked up from his own tear soaked hands and saw the accursed child looking down the barrel of a sawed off shotgun, held by the white gloved hand of another Shinji Ikari.

"I've never killed the personification of an god-like being's mind rape of a little boy before. So I want you to help me make our first time _special_."

The little boy opened its mouth and screeched as its teeth turned to fangs and its eyes turned jet black. A double blast had Shinji covering his head with flailing arms as the creepy child was turned into a new crimson paint job for one half of the train car.

"Aaaaaah, was it as good for you as it was for me? Oh, too wasted to pull yourself together? That's okay, I have that effect on people." The vampire said while he reloaded his shotgun. "Well scratch that off the bucket list."

"Oh god, this is just another dream, isn't it? I'm still gonna die."

"No."

"I'm not gonna die?" Shinji asked, a spot of hope in his voice.

"No, this isn't a dream, but you are going to die. Now before you start…" The vampire replied.

"That's not helpful!"

"I said, BEFORE. YOU. START!" The vampire said, and then straightened his tie. "As I was saying, you are going to die unless you do as I say and get your shit together."

Shinji fell on his ass as the train faded away, leaving him and the vampire on an empty white plain in an empty white void. The vampire hauled him to his feet.

"Right, so I am sure you have a lot of questions, but you can ask them all later assuming we don't all die."

"B-but you killed the angel, its over now, right?"

"Well I killed the mind-rapey part of the angel…" The vampire said as the ground began to shake. "Now comes the actual rape part."

The vampire pointed behind Shinji, who turned to see a creature that looked like a gaping maw with legs. Multitudes of mismatched legs pulled the slug like creature along he ground. It had no eyes, no ears, only hundreds of teeth dripping with caustic drool around a black void of a mouth.

"M-m-musn't run away."

"Alright, stop that shit, you aren't helping anybody. Come on." The other Shinji grabbed the boy by the shoulders and spun him around to face the oncoming monster. Shinji couldn't tell how far away it was, with no reference in sight, but it already looked taller than the evangelions and it still looked pretty far away.

"Okay, hands up like so." The Shinji in black raised the one who was quaking in fear's arms up straight out in front of him. "Okay, frame the target, yeah just like that."

Shinji made a box with his thumbs on the short ends and two fingers and looked through it at the angel.

"Okay, now the words, with me in one, two three…"

_Releasing dimensional control systems level 3, level 2, level 1… Situation E recognized, the Katsuragi invocation is in effect. Temporary release of abilities authorized until the enemy is silenced and full integrity is restored._

Shinji Ikari, the scared little boy, was lifted into the air, his arms held straight out, as red mist surrounded his body. The vampire stood in front of him, looking up.

"What is that thing, what's happening?"

"This angel is but a portal, it has no power of its own. That is why it is forced to use your own trouble and pain against you. That monster is everything you fear, everything you hate about the world, about yourself, made real."

The vampire had its shotgun out again, changing the shells in the twin barrels. Shinji tried to move, but the rose colored mist held him like a vice grip. He could not turn, he could not look away, he could not RUN away.

"However, it has been fucking with the walls between parallel dimensions a bit, leaving room for you to do the same. Your little dreaming has been more like spying on other lives out of dissatisfaction for your own. But flitting between worlds like that, you are connected to each of those lives. So if you die, well that's it for all of us."

"But you are here! So does that mean I can bring the others?"

The laughed as he slapped the weapon shut. "That's the idea. What is thy bidding my master?"

"Keep me safe from my trouble and pain!" As soon as the words escaped his mouth, Shinji felt a shock like someone had put a million volts directly into his spine. As he shook and convulsed in the mist's grip, little balls of red lights broke off and began to fly around him.

The vampire Shinji Ikari, heir to the power of Alucard, leveled his shotgun at the monster and fired both barrels. Twin explosions within its maw rocked the monster until it returned fire with a gigantic beam of pink fire, heading right for the immobilized Shinji.

Shinji slammed his eyes shut and waited for the end, but there was only heat and light, but no pain. When he opened his eyes, he saw another self, glad in a scarlet tunic and a brass colored helmet polished to a mirror finish. His massive shield had stopped the attack cold. The warrior flew off towards the monster, born aloft by red light.

"See that sword brother! That is why I carry a proper shield. Let us see your magic do that!"

A light that flew in the shape of a dragon resolved itself into a man glad in midnight black armor that exuded crimson menace. "Bah, I wear proper armor, not just a helmet!"

Another sprite zoomed past the bickering warriors in the shape of a wolf before a man wearing a wolfskin and carrying an axe in each hand snapped at them. "if you milk-drinkers are done flirting, we have an angel to kill! Unless you've forgotten, that's what we do!"

The man wolf man dissolved back into red light and shot off towards the angel. "For Odin!" Echoed in the air behind him.

"Ta Sardar Gor!"

"For Sovngarde!"

The warriors flew off together, each straining to draw blood before the others. When they reached the monster, each took form and attacked. The Gorean cast his great spear, wreathed in golden light into the maw of the beast before drawing his sword. The monster screamed and stopped dead in its tracks. Though it was but a tiny weapon compared to the size of the thing, it pieced the lip and stuck fast in the ground. No matter how the angel pulled, it could not loose it.

**Yool Tor Shul!**

Fire engulfed the angel even before the Dragonborn landed on its back. Every slash of his blade left burning gashes across the beast's flesh, burned shut by lightening before getting torn open again by blade and thu'um.

Shinji watched as the berserker, sheathed in armor of golden light, hacked off legs and beat back the monsters attack. But even together, they weren't winning. They were holding it back, but even now he could see them tire.

"More!"

Shinji's skull screamed in pain and his ears bled from the twin sonic booms as the jet fighter and the power armor flew past.

Shinji Stark Ikari let his dorsal thrusters take over as he brought his repulsors to bear on the angel. a barrage of overcharged beams stunned the beast only for a flight of hundreds of micro missiles to go right down its ugly throat. Gouts of fire pushed out through the many wounds in its body as they detonated.

"Alright flyboy, you ready?"

High above, the pilot banked the fighter plane hard and armed all of his weapons as the angel came into his sights.

"Firefox to all friendlies, make way."

In synchronous, a dozen missiles and a hyper-sonic cannon fired as a uni-beam blast to put the angel Ramiel to shame tore through the monster. For the first time yet, the beast took a step back.

The original Shinji Ikari, the one acting as a conduit for all the others, could feel the power flowing through him. For everything else he was, for all the bad traits, for all of the self-absorbed whining, for all the immature bullshit, he was Shinji Ikari.

He made the angels die.

"More, all of you, come and fight!" Shinji screamed.

A glowing red figure, shaped like a man and holding its Rickenbastard guitar by the neck in one hand stopped to regard him with glowing eyes before rushing off to battle. A gigantic black and white stripped sandworm followed, carving through the void at any angle it pleased.

For a moment, the angel was held. The worm had bound it to the ground and many of its legs had been carved away.

"Finish it!" Shinji yelled. Through everything he had felt presences like his own, souls he could recognize as himself coming from elsewhere. Now he felt something huge and totally unlike himself appear. For a moment he was afraid it was another angel, or maybe some new and terrible form. When he heard the words, he realized he was happy that it was something much much worse.

The white void went dark in the shadow of an enormous hand, so big a single finger would have dwarfed the evangelions all together. Its skin was black like the night sky, with stars shimmering across it. All of the other Shinji's disappeared when the hand reached down and grabbed the monster within its clenched fist.

Shinji looked up as it lifted the struggling angel and saw the void-skinned giant. In the shape of a man, its three eyes were each like a sun, its long hair a nebula of many colors. It wore ribbons of chromatic light and a serpent that must have stretched the length of nations rested on its shoulders.

**_I am created_**

The angel monster screamed and thrashed as the giant began to squeeze.

**_The destroyer_**

He could not define the moment when it happened, but Shinji was no longer watching the giant. He was the giant. With the angel struggling for release, he felt the power he wielded.

NERV built the evangelions, but they needed him to pilot. Asuka and Rei could pilot, they could even win, but not like him. He was Shinji Ikari, the hunter of angels. So what if he had some emotional baggage to get past, who didn't?

As his confidence grew, his troubles and pain seemed smaller and smaller. As quickly as he had become the giant, he was himself again, and the angel struggled within his small, pale fist.

"I am the Shinji Ikari that I want to be." He said with a smile. He did not have to crush the monster. It was gone.

Shinji looked up at a slow clapping and found the him in the dark suit againt there again. "Congratulations."

"What happens now?"

"You got a world to get back to. You have three women who would like nothing more than spend their lives with you. You have an evil conspiracy to defeat, which I would like to point out is definitely one of the more enjoyable things to kill in this world. Speaking of which, you have a world to save and after that, an entire life to live and do with as you please."

"How do I go back?"

"Well, before I tell you, some advice. The power of giving up your humanity is very tempting, but you don't need it. Remember that you are human, as you were always meant to be." The other Shinji Ikari said, then took off his sunglasses. Instead of the red eyes of the vampire, there was Shinji's own bright blue.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Shinji Ikari you needed to meet. Now wake up and get back to it."

* * *

><p>Shinji Ikari woke up under a familiar hospital ceiling, gasping for breath.<p>

"You are awake." He looked over and saw Rei sitting next to his bed.

"Ayanami-san… yeah, I am… right?"

She tilted her head. "Yes."

Shinji sat up on the bed, feeling surprisingly good. "Hey Ayanami-san, I'm hungry, would you like to get some food? You know, like a date?"

"A… date?"

"Yeah." Shinji said, swinging his legs off the bed. "I know this great shwarma place, well I mean I don't, but another me did. It's a long story, come on lets go."

* * *

><p><em>Credits<em>

_The characters and the stories they are from, in order of appearance._

_The Vampire – No Life King Of Tokyo-3, ShinjiCard, Hellsing Crossover, ongoing story._

_The Warrior – A Warrior From A Counter Earth, Shinji Of Gor, Gorean Chronicles Crossover, ongoing story._

_The Dragonborn – Angelborn, Skyrim crossover. For those who play, One Handed/destruction, smithing, starts as light, transitions to heavy armor, Stormcloak, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, vampire hunter, made Miraak his bitch. Favorite shout: Fire Breath. Angels are just bigger, weirder, dov'ah. Adam is like Akatosh._

_The Berserker – The Hammer Of The Gods, Shinji is the chosen of Odin. Inspired by the excellent Vikings TV show. His berserker fighting style would be enabled by passive AT field deflecting blows._

_The Power Armor – NERV of Iron, Shinji Stark Ikari, Marvel crossover. Taken up by another author._

_The Jet Fighter – Beneath My Wings, Shinji "Firefox" Ikari, not a crossover, just my ode to all things military aviation. Evas are advanced fighter planes and Shinji is married to Rei with a young son named Kaworu._

_The Roadie – Everything Louder Than Everything Else, Shinji as a roadie to Motorhead, with a touch of FLCL._

_The Ghost – Its Showtime, Beetlejuice crossover, the ghost with the most baby. Series more than movie._

_The Destroyer – Trishula, for those following that story, that is Shiva's true form. Will not be making an appearance in that story however. Instead you'll get his evangelion._

_The Yakuza – An Appreciation For Tradition, Shinji as heir to the most feared name in the Yakuza, Yui Ikari. He is more the boss type than the leg breaker, so coming in just at the end to tell Shinji what he needs to hear is his style. For those interested, Toji and Kensuke are leg breakers for fun and profit._

* * *

><p>"Do you like it?"<p>

"It is pleasing. What else does a date entail?"

"I dunno, we could find out together if you like."

* * *

><p>In another dimension, a cross dimensional abomination in the form of a little boy in a striped shirt, lay on a table, held down by several layers of clear plastic wrap. The boy did not wince when another Shinji Ikari put a scalpel to his cheek and took a small sample of blood, which he then put on a glass slide.<p>

"I was taught that I should apologize for not being able to come to the gathering earlier." Shinji said as he slid the slid into a polished wooden box with two dozen others. "I just don't work well in groups."

_The Predator – Morning Routine. Shinji's teacher was Dexter Morgan._

* * *

><p>"I believe dates are suppose to be between just two individuals interesting in each other romantically."<p>

"Who said it was a date, wondergirl?" Asuka snapped from the other side of Shinji.

"I'm just here to chaperone."

"Uh, Now before you start, I figured we should just discuss it now so nobody gets hurt down the line, even if it never happens. What did you call it Misato, the Four Point Star Formation?... What?... Why are you all looking at me like that?"

end

* * *

><p>Not doing endings for this one, thought this would be more fun. Based on an idea I had a while back with the original Shinji Ikari meeting various crack fanfic counterparts.<p>

I have more of these coming, no worries. Going to keep doing these little wrap ups, I call them nexus chapters, every five or so.

For anyone wondering where the Shinji who performed in Rocky Horror is: Lifted up by red mist, talking to a vampire, he asked to be shielded from his trouble and pain. _Rose tint my world keep me safe from my trouble and pain_ is a chorus from Rocky Horror Show. Also, you know, probably going to do a part II to that.


	14. A Matter Of Faith

Shinji Ikari One Shot

A Matter Of Faith

* * *

><p>Shinji Ikari was a man of faith. But his was not a casual faith, drawn on only in times of trouble. Shinji's faith was deep and in everything he did.<p>

He knew some people would find it silly, to have faith like his in times like these. He found it silly himself sometimes, but for his mother having died when he was just a toddler, and his father dumping him off with his teacher, he was fairly normal. He had friends, mostly his game group, and he did well in school.

He did so well because his faith demanded nothing less.

He played well, honestly and honorably, because his faith demanded it.

He woke every morning before dawn and exercised, running several miles and doing a hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and squats each. When he got home he would wake his teacher and make breakfast before seeing to his body. Once he had finished his shower, while the hot steam still filled the bathroom, he would say his prayers. He demanded nothing less of himself.

His excellent grades made his teachers tell him he could pick any university in the nation. Shinji told them all the same thing.

"I want to serve humanity, a life of learning can wait."

How did he plan to serve, they would ask. Would he go abroad, do human rights work, perhaps dedicate himself to helping the poorest?

"I'm going to be a soldier!" He would tell them, much to their shock.

Shinji had been disappointed when he was twelve and realized he would never go to the stars to make the way for humanity branching out from this little world. So he decided once he was finished with school, he would join the military. Even a decade and a half after impact, most of the world was still racked by war.

He would bring peace to the children of man, because his soul demanded no less.

It had all started with little things. A few words before the roll of the dice, hands across his chest and a silent prayer for good fortune, that sort of thing.

Lots of big things, like change the world big, start with little things.

Shinji was stepping through the door, home from school, pulling his SDAT earbuds out as he crossed the threshold, when his teacher told him he had a letter. Shinji set his tape player aside and went to find a letter opener. He liked the old device, outdated as it was. Old was good, old works.

The letter was from his father, their first contact since last year. They had met up at his mother's memorial, but had exchanged no words. Apparently the old man was out of practice, since the letter said only "come" and nothing else. Enclosed was a train ticket and a picture of quite attractive woman with a rather crude note emphasizing her bust.

"Hey Sensei! Can I get off from school on UN orders?"

* * *

><p>It had been quite a day since he left peaceful Sendai on the train. As soon as he had arrived, they had began running from the monster. Shinji never got a clear look at it through the hills and the attacking VTOLs. The N2 mine had thrown so much dust in the air he hadn't been able to see much at all.<p>

Seeing his father had been a surprise, but Shinji had his chance to shock when he was told he was to pilot this machine in defense of humanity.

"Yes Sir!" He had shouted, smartly saluting and snapping his heels together. The effect was ruined somewhat by the dull thud of his sneakers coming together.

Now he sat in the cockpit as the orange goo rushed in. He had been assured it was perfectly safe and told to just breath it.

"Captain Katsuragi, can I ask a question?"

"As long as it is quick."

"What is the angel, I mean, where does something like that come from and how come we never saw it before?"

"We believe the angels are a kind of extraterrestrial weapon. The leading theory is that they are here to wipe out life on earth to make way for whatever is sending them."

"Its an… alien?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Shinji quickly pulled open the top buttons of his shirt and fished his necklace out from under his t-shirt. He grabbed the small icon that hung from the chain around his neck and began to speak.

On the bridge, Misato was watching the feed from within the plug.

"Whats he saying? I can't hear, raise the pick-up."

A tech raised the volume and as they listened to him speak, there was a giggle from Dr. Ristuko Akagi. His mumbling was still indistinct, but from the white knuckle grip on the thin chain around his neck with both hands, it didn't matter.

"Is he praying?" Misato asked to nobody in particular.

"So it would appear. Not an unexpected reaction, but there was nothing in his file about being religious at all. He doesn't go to church or anything. Spends all his free time playing games." The blond doctor said, flipping through a sheaf of papers on her console.

In the plug, Shinji had his eyes screwed shut and both hands clenched around the symbol of his faith, his lips moving near silently through practiced words.

_Though I walk through darkness, I know no fear_

_For I wear the mantle of faith, and the armor of contempt_

_I am the tip of his spear, as he is the strength of my arm_

_I am the armor about his mailed fist, as he is the crushing blow_

_Like a storm I will come upon his enemies_

_By blade and gun I will vanquish the xeno_

_By holy fire I will purge the heretic and the witch_

_I will cut out the taint of chaos wherever I find it_

Shinji felt the lurch of the catapult, the g-force pressing him into the couch. He clenched his teeth and let go of the Aquila around his neck, grabbing the control yokes. The evangelion came to a screeching halt, sparks flying from the rails as brakes stopped the machine from being thrown into the sky. For the first time Shinji saw the whole of the angel, and what he saw turned the light of his faith into a wildfire.

It was a disgusting parody of the sacred shape of man. It was ungainly and clumsy as it shuffled through the streets, dragging its feet and shattering buildings as it brushed by. Its green flesh barely covered its bones and eye sockets of the exposed skull were filled only with inky darkness. Sacks of yellow fat hung from it and a single twisted horn spiraled out from its skull.

"I will destroy you, xenos filth!" Shinji screamed as the evangelion took its first step away from the support of the lift. Shinji felt like he was doing a million things at once, it was mentally exhausting just to make the machine move. This must be what a princeps feels like, the thought.

"For I am his angel of death!" He said as he made the machine straighten up and raise its hands in fists. "And I will know no fear!"

With lurching steps, the evangelion charged and threw a haymaker with its right arm, grazing the roof tops as it swung. The titanic armored fist connected with the jaw, shattered the rictus grin to splinters. Shinji felt the sudden recoil as the punch stopped dead still within the jaw, stuck in an organic cement of tissue and bone fragment that started to close around the evangelions hand.

Shinji struggled to free the eva, but the angel held fast and grabbed the evangelion's right arm with its own left hand. Shinji gasped in pain as he felt dozens of ragged bone needles pierced through the eva's arm, then screamed as the angel snapped the bones with a squeeze of its clawed fist.

His blood ran cold as he felt the rot enter the evangelion, enter _his_ body. He could see it twisting and bulging on the machine's arm, felt it writhing beneath his own skin. It was obvious what this thing was, a daemon of Nurgle, a great unclean one. It would infect him, consume his machine. There was no point fighting something like this, it had already won. How did you fight something like this?

_Faith_

Shinji growled and purged the heretical thoughts from his mind. Chaos was cunning but it was weak before the emperor's might, and his faith was the emperor's will made real.

"BACK, DAEMON!" Shinji shouted. With his words came golden light across the evangelion's body and the daemon was thrown down. The monster fell to the street, its claws digging through towers of steel and glass and finding no purchase.

Its right arm a shredded, useless, sack of tissue, Shinji made the evangelion take a step back.

"Hello! Can anybody hear me?"

"Shinji, this is captain Katsuragi, we can hear you. Shinji I know you are probably in a lot of pain right now, but you can't retreat."

"I would never retreat Captain, not with his eyes upon me. If I attack this daemon with bare hands again it will only infect the machine further. I need a weapon, a sword, a gun, anything!"

Lt. Makoto held his hand over her headset's microphone. "Ma'am, I can have the magorax to the armory building on his left in three-point-five, just give the order."

"What do we have for guns?"

"Does he even have firearms training?"

"Point. Send it… Shinji, the building on your left is going to open up in a few seconds, there will be a sword for you inside."

Three and a half seconds later, the daemon was getting up as Shinji grabbed the sword in a reverse grip with the evangelion's left hand. The sheath came along with it and as Shinji swung, it was blunt force trauma to the monster's neck instead of the cut he had wanted.

"Shinji, my name is Lt. Makoto. You need to disengage the lock to draw the sword."

Shinji pulled the sheathed sword away as he took another step back before the daemon could grab hold.

"And how exactly am I to do that?!"

"Okay, on the left control yoke…"

Shinji yelled and stabbed the weapon into the daemon's chest, driving it back to the ground with the sheath lodged within its torso. He let the beast's flesh get hold before moving to a proper grip on the sword and pulling as hard as he could, shearing the lock between weapon and sheath as he drew the sword.

"Or you could do that… that works too."

Shinji thrust the tip of the blade into the belly of the daemon then pushed the hilt up against the lodged sheath. Using the sheath as a guide in place of having a second hand to guide the swing, he pushed the blade through the daemon's body in one long stroke, cleaving it in two from its belly and through its skull.

The evangelion stumbled to catch itself after the over extended swing, leaving Shinji looking at the hopefully dead daemon of Nurgle. It was not moving, but he expected something else. For it to go back into the warp or something.

"Oh well… Um…" Shinji considered the right words then crossed his left hand over his chest. His right was not moving. "In his name, I banish thee from this world."

And then everything went very bright, then very dark.

* * *

><p>"What the hell was that?!"<p>

"The angel exploded!"

"Any sign of it, is there any blue pattern?"

"No Ma'am, no blue pattern remaining. The third angel has been defeated. Maybe that was like a suicide attack or a kind of miniature of impact?"

"Whatever, leave it to the nerds to figure out."

"Hey!"

"Condition of the evangelion and the pilot?"

"Unit one has sustained surface damage, but nothing beyond the primary armor layer, outside the right arm. Explosive bolts have isolated damaged tissue in that section. Pilot's vitals are stable, but unhealthy."

"Get the pilot out of there."

* * *

><p>When Shinji awoke beneath an unfamiliar ceiling, he had the distinct feeling something was missing.<p>

"Oh good, you are awake." Shinji recognized the voice of Captain Katsuragi. "Now before you look down…"

"You cut off my arm didn't you?"

"No! no no… well I mean _I_ didn't cut off your arm, that was Rits here…"

Dr. Akagi sighed and elbowed her friend, and she would be using that term lightly at this moment.

"Shinji, you shouldn't be able to feel its absence, but yes, we were forced to amputate most of your right arm."

Shinji nodded and slowly looked down at the depression in the sheet where his arm just… ended. He reached over with his left hand and pulled the sheet down to look at the bandage wrapped stump. It looked like they had cut about halfway down the humerus, so right between his shoulder and the missing elbow.

"I am sure you have a lot of questions." Dr. Akagi said, sitting down on the bed next to the boy, on the left side of his feet. "And I will answer all of them for you. I want you to know it was my decision and it was not something I took lightly."

Shinji nodded, biting his lip. The muscles in his cheeks were twitching and it was clear to both women he was doing his best not to cry.

"I… I think I know why."

"Okay Shinji, why don't you tell us what you think and I can fill in the gaps for you." Dr. Akagi said.

"When it… the daemon I mean…"

"Actually we call them angels. I mean yeah it sure as hell seems more like somethin…"

"That beast was a greater daemon of the plague god, I know what I fought." Shinji said, his eyes hard as he glared at the captain. "When it grabbed the machine's arm, it infected its flesh with something. When I, you called it synching right? When I sync with the machine what happens to it happens to me, right?"

"That is very observant Shinji. Yes, when a pilot has synced with the evangelion, it is possible to experience sympathetic pain, even injuries. The… thing you fought did transmit a pathogen into the tissues that make up the evangelions musculature. We are still working out exactly how, but you suffered the same effects. We aren't sure if it was psychosomatic and your body created the injuries to match what happened to the eva, or if the pathogen somehow transmitted through the LCL as a medium."

Shinji nodded and she continued.

"Now with the evangelion, we were able to isolate, remove, and replace the arm, but of course, that's not something we can do with you. When you were removed from the plug, there was already necrosis, that is tissue death, around your wrist. In the twenty minutes it took to get you here, it had already spread over your hand and to your elbow. We cut where we did to prevent any chance of infected tissue remaining in your body."

Shinji nodded again and stared at the space where his right arm was not.

"Do you have any questions?" Ritsuko asked.

"Can I still pilot, you know, and make both arms move?"

"I will be honest, we don't know. This is the first case of this kind of thing we have seen. I know I would be very interested in helping you try, but I do believe it is possible. It is up to you if you even wish to continue or not. We very much want you to of course, but at this point we can't force you to try."

"And the machine has been repaired?" Shinji asked. He was still staring at the stump.

"Yes. Well repairs are underway, but its just speed of labor at this point."

Shinji reached up to his chest with his remaining arm with searching fingers. He looked down when he felt nothing. "Um, do you have my…"

"Oh!" Misato said, and dug into her jacket pocket. "I wanted to make sure it didn't get lost or anything. Docs had to cut your shirt off to get at your arm."

Misato stepped over on the right side of his bed and held out his brass colored double eagle. Shinji took it from her and held it in his fist, over his chest. He looked at the stump again and shut his eyes. The doctor and the captain watched him mouth a few words, and then he was still for a long time.

He turned his head to face them before he opened his eyes.

"If my arm was the price to defend humanity, then…" Shinji pushed himself up with his elbow, the icon still clenched in his fist. It hurt to move and he winced in pain before he could look at them again. There were tears in his eyes, but there was also fire.

"Then I give it gladly."

He only held himself up for a few seconds before he fell forwards. It was Ritsuko's arms that caught him and wrapped around his shoulders. In a moment of compassion that shocked Misato, she soothed the boy, gently stroking his head and back as he began to cry into her shoulder.

When he had calmed down a time later and could hold himself, he spoke again.

"C-can I make one request?"

"Of course."

"W-would it be possible, perhaps, to have a prosthetic?"

"For the boy who saved the world, I think we can figure something out."

"Thank you doctor."

* * *

><p>Shinji slept in the hospital that night. He wouldn't be going home for a while, and there was still the matter of where home was. His father had been clear he had no interest in taking the boy in.<p>

Ritsuko had checked on him first thing when she got in, then saw to her own work. It was during that morning work session, between smoke breaks three and four, that Misato burst into her office, holding a stapled sheaf of papers and periodically giggling.

"Rits, Rits, Rits, you gotta see this!"

Dr. Akagi looked up from her paperwork, lipstick stained pen dangling from her mouth and her glasses fallen halfway down her nose.

"And what treasure have you dug up, Misa?"

"So I wanted to look up what Shinji was praying to, cause it didn't sound Christian, or Buddhist or Shinto or anything. Turns out he is a freakin' otaku! Its from a war game." Misato tossed the papers on the doctor's desk. She began flipping through them. It appeared to be background material for a science fiction setting.

"Interesting…" Ritsuko said as she flipped past a picture in the style of an orthodox icon, depicting a man in golden armor wielding a flaming sword.

"So he is a total geek, right?"

Ritsuko looked up from another page of text. She had been quite interested in the small picture in the side bar. This one in a realistic style, it depicted a man in a fascist style military uniform with a prosthetic arm. The arm looked as much a weapon as the massive gun in his other hand or the sword on his hip. The look on the subject's face was one of grim determination. The look on Dr. Akagi's face was one of annoyance.

"So he has an odd faith and a hobby. What's so wrong with that?"

"Uh, cause its from a game. And its not, you know, real?"

Ritsuko pushed her glasses back up her nose and sat up in her chair. "And what are you comparing it to?"

"whaddya mean?"

"When you say it isn't real, what do you mean?" Dr. Akagi asked.

"Well its not a real religion, its just made up for a game. Its more of a parody of religion and cults of personality really."

"Yes but lets assume he really believes it. How is his faith not real?"

"Because what he believes in isn't real. What are you getting at Ritsuko?"

"Misato, you know where I stand on religion. You can all go talk to your special version of your big invisible friend in the sky. So telling me his god isn't real because another one is doesn't cut it."

"You can't be serious."

"Well I am and I'm not. I'm not saying his beliefs are true. But I fail to see the sacred line between beliefs based on, and lets be honest here, very watered down versions of books written by a bunch of starving madmen in the desert a few thousand years ago, which demands denying oneself any number of variants of anything fun and…"

Ritsuko flipped through a few pages.

"Books written by some rather witty men from… oh that's unfortunate, from Britain… Anyway, the point is, if this is what he bases his values on, he believes in defending the human race, no matter what. I will be honest Misa, I think if I am going to ask someone to risk life and limb to defend the planet, I think I would rather have a follower of…"

Ritsuko flipped another page and adjusted her glasses.

"The God-Emperor of Mankind, than someone who believes in whatever desert death cult mumbo jumbo." Dr. Akagi said, flapping her hand in the air through the last bit. She was looking back down at the papers Misato had brought.

"Not cool, Akagi."

"Excuse me?"

"Death cult mumbo jumbo? That offensive."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over that noise. I think its that pot over there calling my kettle something or other. Do you hear that?"

Misato had left unhappy. Ritsuko had thanked her as she walked out the door. The information she had brought, written as if it was a current publication for citizens of this 'Imperium of Man', was both fascinating and frankly quite amusing. She prided herself on the breadth of her reading, and the many in-jokes and references were actually quite skillful. She could easily understand how an adolescent boy with weak father figures would find something of value in it.

It got creepy when she got to the information on the forces of chaos, some magical faction, kind of a mash-up of various versions of hell to her reckoning. While it certainly wasn't obese looking, the angel did bear a striking resemblance to certain creatures of this god of sickness and such, Nurgle.

Ritsuko turned back to the picture of the officer with the bionic arm, then searched through the piles of binders for that report she had ordered on potential prosthetics for the boy. They had made quite some headway in neurological interfaces thanks to the eva project. As she looked at the blue prints and the picture of the, lets see what did they call him, ah, the commissar, an idea began to form. She grabbed a piece of paper from her printer tray and began to sketch.

Hmmm, yeah he would probably like something like that. She would check in on him at lunch and show him.

End

* * *

><p>So this is my take, and my tribute, on the whole NGE40K thing. Shinji & Warhammer 40,000 by Charles Bhpen and Thousand Shinji by Academia Nut are two stories that really got me back into reading for pleasure. That was something I had lost touch with the busy life of a family man. They also inspired me to write, thus why I tend to stick to Eva stuff. (I am working on branching out to other fandoms and original work.)

What I didn't like in those was, in both, Shinji is in this god-like role. Shinji40K he is a would be god-emperor, Thousand Shinji similar thing on the chaos side of the coin. But the best fiction set in the 40k universe has always been that stuff where you have one person or a group, doing incredible things, but as just tiny specks in the massive imperium. Even the inquisitor centered novels, these are people working cases that affect billions, if not trillions of people, and they are just one tiny corner of one faction in the galaxy.

With these one shots, I think of the characters with names like the warrior, the vampire, the pilot, etc. This one I think of as The Fanatic. He is never going to be the god emperor, he is not invincible or anything. He is just a faithful, determined, and yes very-abled, servant in own view. He dreamed of being a space marine, but he was happy with settling for what he saw as equivalent to a guardsmen, because he would still be making a difference. Now he pilots a titan, and to him it is all the same. He is fighting to defend humanity and holy terra.

If this continued, I would see Shinji taking on a role similar to an inquisitor outside the eva. The angels would indeed be the threat of chaos made real, and all that entails. The extreme measures of the inquisition would be necessary because of the very really danger of the witch, the mutant, and the xeno. Then things really get weird when the emperor starts granting miracles.

Oh and, appro of nothing, this Shinji is homosexual. Not camp, just attracted to the same gender, that's all. His biggest moment of angst would be a scene in which he has a bolter to Kaworu's head. Kaworu is telling him, very calmly, to pull the trigger, because he never wants to hurt Shinji. It would be the one time his armor of contempt cracked, the one time he truly questioned his faith. I honestly am not sure whether he would pull the trigger or find another way. Make him swear to serve humanity, call him a daemonhost or something.


End file.
